Australian manufacturing will be eroded and power to the sector switched off unless urgent action is taken to reduce barriers to gas investment, the boss of Australia's biggest energy company warned.
Woodside chief executive Meg O'Neill called for an end to "anti-gas rhetoric" and to scrap Victoria's ban on certain onshore gas production over concerns supply shortages would hit economy.
"The worry I have is when you get to a point where there's not enough power to go around to meet the needs of all of the power consumers," she told reporters following her address to the Melbourne Mining Club on Thursday.
"Then somebody's going to have to make a decision about who gets power and who gets turned off, and the likely outcome is that industry will get turned off.
"You can't turn off power to hospitals or schools or communities, so I think it risks eroding the ongoing industry here in Victoria."
A ban on fracking and coal seam gas exploration is enshrined in Victoria's constitution however a halt on conventional exploration was overturned in 2021.
A handful of environmental activists targeted the event at Melbourne's Town Hall, shouting "no more gas, no more coal" as attendees arrived to hear Ms O'Neill's wide-ranging rallying cry to the sector.
Ms O'Neill described artificial intelligence data centres as "power hogs" that had created a need for more energy supply she said should include natural gas and potentially nuclear power.
She warned the Trump administration's early action on deregulation and energy investment added to "acute" challenges facing Australian producers.
Taking aim at environmental approvals at home, Ms O'Neill urged the federal government to allow an extension to a Woodside project in Western Australia that has been tied up for years.
However, Climate Energy Finance director Tim Buckley said gas shortage claims were "self-serving" and accused companies of cartel-like behaviour.
"It is a contrived shortage that the gas cartel has created," he told AAP.
Eastern Australia had produced five times as much gas as it had used in the past three months and demand had dropped, Mr Buckley said, predicting any boost to production would see more gas sent offshore unless Australia paid more.
"They're always trying to get more," he said.
"They're pressuring the government to allow increased production knowing that they have under-utilised export capacity."
Mr Buckley said gas was a major price-setter for electricity but fossil fuel dependency was waning in the shift to renewables, which now accounted for 46 per cent of the national electricity market supply mix according to the Australian Energy Market Operator.
Victorian Energy and Resources minister Lily D'Ambrosio said work was under way to address "dwindling" gas supply.
That included making new projects eligible for fast-tracking, with Beach Energy's new gas extraction project given the green light in mid-2024 for the first time in a decade.
"Gas is part of our energy transition but supply is dwindling and prices are going up," Ms D'Ambrosio said.
"That's why we overturned the Liberals' ban on conventional gas exploration in Victoria and why we're working to secure new supply while building renewable energy which will push down families' power bills."
