Contact chief executive Steve Barrett and Genesis boss Murray Jackson said they would buy electricity from Todd, primarily because New Zealand needed more power produced from more stations to satisfy continuing strong demand.

Barrett said Contact would welcome Todd Energy into the gas generation market, while Jackson said he would be happy to buy practically priced power from Todd.

“I don’t know what they (Todd Energy) want but they would need a base loaded, combined cycle station and long-term contracts, not selling on the spot market. They would also need a multi-field portfolio,” Jackson told EnergyReview.net from Auckland this morning.

Two days ago Todd Energy managing director Richard Tweedie told the 7th annual New Zealand Power Summit conference in Auckland that LNG importation could “materially damage the gas market”.

He said that if Contact and Genesis decided to import LNG, then Todd Energy would prefer to use its gas making electricity rather than onselling to other generators. Todd was already considering

building a 200MW gas-fired power station to preserve a local gas market.

Tweedie said Todd would be able to produce electricity more competitively than Contact or Genesis could with LNG.

Genesis and Contact had said imported LNG would cost about NZ$6-7 per Gigajoule. But Tweedie preferred the Canterbury University Centre for Advanced Engineering’s estimates of a likely landed price of about NZ$8.70/GJ (which was based on a New Zealand dollar at US55 cents and oil at around US$30 a barrel).

Jackson said if Todd was to raise its gas prices to NZ$6-7 per GJ, then importing LNG would be justifiable as that supply would be long-term and more reliable.