Unconventional gas operations in Queensland's portion of the Lake Eyre basin are likely to be financially and environmentally costly and could quickly become stranded assets, research commissioned by an anti-fracking organisation says.
The state government is considering whether to allow fracking on floodplains in the 120 million hectare basin, which covers vast parts of western Queensland and extends into NSW, the Northern Territory and South Australia.
Lock the Gate Alliance commissioned the report, however, Queensland co-ordinator Ellie Smith said others could have come to similar conclusions.
"It's likely Origin Energy identified many of the same risks outlined in this report by Pegasus Economics, given its recent decision to withdraw from upstream gas exploration in the region," she said.
Lock the Gate is also calling on the government to extinguish Origin's tenements and ban fracking on the floodplains.
Origin offloaded its stake in the Beetaloo basin to focus on "cleaner" projects in September, including a big battery on the site of the closing Eraring coal-fired power station in NSW.
Pegasus Economics director and former microeconomic advisor to Treasurer Peter Costello, Alistair Davey, told AAP fracking is not commercially viable based on what exploration has already occurred in smaller basins within the larger Lake Eyre basin.
"Quite a number of large international, multi-national oil companies have already pulled out of both the Georgina and Cooper basin when they've been exploring and trying to develop unconventional gas resources.
"Those companies have come to the obvious conclusion these resources just didn't stack up," Dr Davey said.
"Santos and Beach Energy - they've also made substantial writedowns in relation to their unconventional gas holdings in the Cooper basin."
Companies exploring the region are looking for shale gas and potentially deep coal seam gas, Dr Davey says.
Fracking - the process of cracking rock to allow gas to be captured more easily - is required to extract the resources, meaning it may have already taken place in the basin, Dr Davey told AAP.
"You can't produce shale gas unless you frack," he said.
The Cooper basin's gas also has a high carbon dioxide content, almost 30 per cent in some samples Dr Davey analysed, putting projects there at a competitive disadvantage.
Australia is among 31 countries that are members of the intergovernmental International Energy Agency.
Its roadmap for reaching net zero emissions suggested liquid gas exports will come from the lowest cost, least emitting producers by 2050.
