ExxonMobil Australia continues longstanding sponsorship of the CEDA Victorian State of the State

Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

It’s an honour for ExxonMobil Australia to be able to sponsor this event today, and for me to introduce The Honourable Victorian Premier, Jacinta Allan.

Thank you Dr Pradeep Phillip for welcoming us today. I too would like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples here today.

At ExxonMobil Australia, we are proud to have a long history for reliably supplying essential gas to Australians. Every molecule of our Gippsland gas goes exclusively to the domestic market, and I would like to thank our team members across our operations in Victoria that are working hard day and night to deliver the energy Australia and Victoria needs.

While renewable energy is essential to help the State of Victoria achieve net zero, it is not sufficient - wind and solar alone can not solve emissions in the industrial sectors that are at the heart of our modern society. Collaboration through a technology neutral approach is key to harness all our combined capability to support change to a lower carbon future.

Locally, ExxonMobil Australia is looking at the potential to utilize carbon capture and storage to sequester hard to abate industrial emissions in the Gippsland Basin.  CCS is a technology enabler to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help Victoria meet its climate action targets.

Further to this, we have signed two long-term carbon dioxide supply agreements with Air Liquide and BOC to capture and reuse carbon dioxide.  The captured CO₂ will be processed in Longford and used in food and beverage products, in addition to water treatment, desalination, manufacturing and medical industries. There’s a good chance next year you could be sitting at home with friends and family drinking a glass of soda or beer filled with bubbles from the Gippsland Basin!

Another way the state can reach its targets is through biofuels; we expect these to play a vital role in Australia’s energy transition, providing a pathway that protects consumer choice and energy affordability, while enabling faster emissions reductions.

These projects are part of our ongoing investment in the Australian economy, and are supported by our additional investments in domestic gas supply. Because as the country and our company explores low carbon solutions, gas will continue to play an important role in power generation to support the energy transition.

New investments are an important part of how we maintain supply to the market, and West Barracouta, which started production in 2021, is and will remain the largest east coast domestic gas project to come online this decade.

Our team of highly skilled and dedicated people are delivering the energy we all need each and every day, and are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to access more supply.   As we speak our teams are installing new compression facilities on our West Tuna platform to access more gas from the Kipper field for domestic use.

We have been a proud partner in Victoria’s economic and energy development for over five decades, and we look forward to supporting Victoria lead the energy transition into the future.

I’d like to now welcome the Premier to the stage.