As usual, Slugcatcher was enjoyably sharp and pithy, but the column repeatedly used the word "forecasts" in referring to LNG production and it could be inferred by a reader that APPEA had made forecasts of LNG production.

For the record, APPEA doesn't make LNG forecasts and nor has it ever. We leave that to the analysts at the investment banks and to government agencies.

What APPEA Council did launch last year at the 2007 conference, however, was an industry strategy which had buy-in from Australian governments - Platform for Prosperity.

This document highlights the potential Australia has to increase exports of LNG to 50 million tonnes per annum by 2017, from 15.1MMtpa in 2007. Remember that LNG production increased almost tenfold in the period 1989 to 1999.

The critical question is whether projects can be brought to fruition in realising the industry's potential.

As noted by Ben Hollins from Wood Mackenzie at APPEA 2008, Australia could be another Qatar but is "underweight" as a producer of LNG compared to where it ought to be.

The role of APPEA is to highlight to governments Australia's unrealised LNG potential and therefore unrealised revenue streams for government, unrealised export earnings to address our trade deficit and unrealised jobs and increased prosperity for all Australians.

Many of the impediments to increasing LNG exports are matters for individual companies but some are matters that will be progressed by the industry as a whole, through APPEA, in partnership with governments.

While there are tough challenges - skilled labour, equipment shortages, land access amongst them - it would be extraordinarily defeatist to suggest that these were insurmountable.

To throw in the towel and say "it is all too hard" when the demand for LNG in the Pacific Basin has been estimated by Wood Mackenzie to grow by 83% by the end of the next decade would be to deny the determination of Australian governments to establish Australia as the world's number three producer of LNG.

APPEA hopes that by illuminating our LNG potential and the impediments, governments might be prepared to invest political capital in helping industry to strive even harder to increase LNG production.