In an interview with ABC TV Inside Business show, Scott said he expects the Queensland CSM industry to begin exporting liquefied natural gas within five years.
"In terms of an industry, I think it'll be starting to rival the coal industry in terms of the amount of people that it employs and the value that it's creating for the Australian economy," Scott said.
Scott also said he believes the resource potential for CSM in Australia is enormous.
"The great thing about it is that it's all onshore and in reasonable accessible areas and close to markets and population bases," he said.
"Obviously there's a lot of work to do and a lot of things that will have to happen to turn that resource into reserves and monetise those reserves into LNG."
According to Scott, the potential export market for LNG was the driving factor behind the rising interest in CSM in Australia over the past few months, with major international players like BG Group and Petronas joining Australian companies in separate LNG developments in Queensland.
Just last week, Shell, Europe's largest oil company signed a $776 million deal with Arrow to commercialise its vast CSM reserves through a proposed LNG plant at Gladstone.
The plant will supply 55 petajoules of gas per year from 2010 to a 1.3 million tonne a year facility at Gladstone, and according to Arrow, demonstrates the key role CSM will play as feed gas for LNG projects in the future.
