Mr Wood believes that a percentage of gas from the Ichthys Gas Field, located in the Browse Basin, 440 km offshore northwestern Australia, should be made available to the Territory’s Power and Water Corporation (PWC).

“We should have said to Inpex we should ensure ten per cent of the gas is available. We need to talk to Inpex and say we want an arrangement to do this,” he said.

The Northern Territory Government currently has an arrangement with Eni to supply gas to the PWC from its Blacktip Gas Field Development for 25 years.

Inpex has previously said that while the Ichthys gas - which will be transported along a proposed 850 km pipeline to be processed at a plant to be located at Blaydin Point, Darwin - would be exported to the Asian market, there would be the potential to supply gas for emergency electricity.

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A ConocoPhillips spokesman said that the company has an agreement with the Northern Territory Government to supply emergency gas to PWC’s Weddell Power Station from its plant at Wickham Point via the 10 km Wickham Point Interconnect gas pipeline.

Inpex’s proposed LNG plant is expected to have an initial capacity to produce more than 8 million tonnes per annum (MMt/a) of LNG, approximately 1.6 MMt/a of LPG and 100,000 barrels of condensate per day. The first shipment of LNG is scheduled to be loaded in 2015.