“The east coast has more than enough gas,” Macfarlane said at a briefing in Perth yesterday.

But the minister did say that the Australian Government would be working with the petroleum industry to encourage greater uptake of gas, aiming to ensure that natural gas was used for up to 70% of all new energy capacity and to double the use of gas as a feedstock for resources processing.

However, these goals could be met without transporting WA gas to the east coast, according to Macfarlane.

“With the PNG pipeline and coal seam methane, the eastern states won’t need West Australian gas,” he said.

“The best commercial development for gas in WA is LNG.”

The Federal Government also aims to work with the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association to boost LNG production to more than 50 million tonnes, up from 11.7MMt in 2005.

“The underlying priority is to see Australia claim its rightful place as one of the world’s top give LNG exporters,” he said.

Australia is currently the world’s 11th largest LNG exporter, according to Macfarlane.