The Alliance's comments came in the immediate lead-up to Macfarlane releasing the Energy Green Paper yesterday, whose answer to the gas shortage was increased upstream competition and transparency to encourage more gas into markets.

While the DomGas Alliance of major energy users, including Alcoa, do not advocate linking WA to Moomba - "that would be madness", the Alliance's executive director Matt Brown told Energy News - it is concerned about a looming gas crunch in 2020, which is being ignored.

The Alliance also includes Fortescue Metals Group, which was reported over the weekend to be investigating alternative development options for the Browse and Scarborough gas fields as part of its push for stronger government enforcement of the use-it-or-lose-it provisions that govern oil and gas licenses.

Macfarlane recently said a $1.3 billon 1000km pipeline linking Alice Springs to South Australia's Moomba plant would link the Northern Territory to the east coast gas market was "more than a vision".

It seemed particularly galling to WA gas users that WA Browse Basin gas from the Ichthys field to be piped to Darwin for Inpex's LNG project could be used to solve the eastern states' gas crisis, given the west is facing its own in the foreseeable future.

"When Santos made the last big discovery they said they would look to get it to the Inpex pipeline and to Darwin that has an option to export it as LNG," Brown said.

He told Energy News that the Canberra energy white paper focus was on fixing the NSW problem, yet when the Alliance broaches the looming WA problem with the feds they receive the standard "hands off approach, the market will sort it out" response which the oil and gas upstream industry also supports.

Yet, Brown is at pains to point out, "the market has not sorted it out on the east coast, so we say there needs to be some sort of federal government intervention".

With Inpex's Browse gas to theoretically be sold into the eastern states, and Santos possibly "piggybacking" on to that deal in the future, Brown sees a worrying trend.

Santos CEO David Knox has said that multiple new production trains could be profitably built at Darwin's two LNG plants following discoveries in the Browse Basin, providing the various gas field owners could co-operate.

Brown said that while such a "single national gas market" proposal would be good news for industry and jobs on the east coast - "albeit that Canberra concedes the gas that flows through it will be expensive" - this does not supply into WA.

This would see WA gas, like GST revenue, sent and spent on the east coast.

"We are not suggesting a pipeline should be built to link WA to this system at this stage," Brown said. "To do so would show a complete failure of policy as we have enormous gas resources off our coast that could be brought to the market here with some leadership from Canberra.

"But it is clear that [WA's] energy needs do not figure greatly in Canberra's thinking.

"It also confirms that if Canberra gets energy policy wrong, there is no fall back option for WA, unlike other states that can get more gas through the national system.

"A national energy policy should put the energy needs of Australian industry and Australian workers first; and WA's heavy reliance on natural gas for our industry, jobs and economic growth must be a major consideration.

"WA should not simply be viewed as the place that can export the most gas and earn the most tax revenue for Canberra. The jobs of mums and dads in WA are just as important as those of mums and dads on the east coast."

The picture is becoming more complicated because of the potential introduction of floating LNG, which means none of the gas will go onshore.

"As we go forward, we see a gas supply crunch in 2020 that will just get worse and worse, because the potential solutions for that aren't coming onshore, they're just going directly to the export market," Brown said.

Australian Pipeline Industry Association CEO Cheryl Cartwright said it was widely accepted that Australia would face higher prices with increased exposure to international gas markets, and acknowledged concern about the availability of gas when the major LNG facilities begin shipments from next year as the vast quantities of gas required to meet international contracts will put pressure on the whole supply chain.

"The first logical development should be CSG in New South Wales because NSW will be the state hit hardest by any gas shortage and because the CSG reserves are proven," Cartwright said in relation to the Green Paper's gas shortage solution of increasing gas supply.

"Unfortunately, community concerns and state government responses to those concerns have led to increasingly strict regulatory requirements and major delays and cancellations of projects," she said.

"Traditionally, when the government has indicated policy reform through market development, the focus has been narrow, on transmission and the downstream markets overseen by the National Gas Law."