NEM Dashboard · east-coast gas
Flow Trace
Australia's east coast gas flow monitor
How production, pipelines, storage, demand and short-term prices interact across Australia's east coast gas system: where gas is moving, when the system is becoming constrained, and which physical conditions are contributing to a market stress event.
Project thesis · what Flow Trace is testing Read the thesis
Flow Trace measures a contradiction in Australia's east coast gas system: the country exports most of its gas from one coast while the far end of the same pipeline network struggles to keep Melbourne warm in winter. Built from the operator's own public data, it tracks where gas is produced, where it moves, and when the network is running against its limits.
Three things stand out so far. LNG export accounts for the large majority of all end-use gas: generation, the subject of most energy-transition commentary, is a fraction of it, though still enough to set a floor under electricity prices. The pipelines feeding Curtis Island have been flagged as threatened on nearly every day for months, a structural condition rather than a passing event. And stress is regional: storage in one state can sit near a record low while another sits comfortably above normal, a pattern a single national number would hide entirely.
The wider claim: whenever a domestic market is joined to a global one by an export terminal, the domestic remainder pays a cost worth measuring directly rather than assuming away. Prices are not yet built into Flow Trace, so its commercial half (what that cost actually is) remains the next piece of work. Source: AEMO Gas Bulletin Board, fetched from nemweb; this is a research view, not market advice.
Current State
System Snapshot · Aug. 30, 2026
Each figure sits against the same week in every other year on record, because a level without history is not a finding.
Gas for power
15 TJ
no comparable history
▼ 152 (91%) over seven days
sets a floor under NEM prices
Generation
Gas-Powered Generation, by Station
Demand from the 41 gas power stations on the network, June 2, 2026 to Aug. 30, 2026 (90 days), broken out by facility rather than collapsed into one aggregate line. The largest stations by total demand this window are named individually; the rest are summed into "Other stations" so smaller generators are not silently dropped from the total, and every one of them is still listed by name below. This is the demand that the thesis says sets a floor under electricity prices: a gas plant only runs when its fuel cost clears the market price it would earn.
- Yarwun
- Torrens Island PS
- Diamantina Power Station
- Pelican Point Power Station
- Bell Bay CCGT
- Mortlake PS
- Channel Island Power Station
- Osborne
- Weddell Power Station
- DDPS
- Other stations
"Other stations", individually
| Station | TJ over the window |
|---|---|
| Quarantine Power Station | 444 |
| McArthur River Mine | 382 |
| Ladbroke Grove PS | 304 |
| Swanbank Power Station | 173 |
| Somerton | 155 |
| Uranquinty Power Station | 142 |
| Tallawarra | 77 |
| Hallett | 74 |
| Braemar 2 Power Station | 65 |
| Owen Springs Power Station | 46 |
| Bolivar | 33 |
| Smithfield Energy Facility | 23 |
| Braemar Power Station | 19 |
| Bell Bay OCGT | 16 |
| Bairnsdale Power Station | 15 |
| Hunter Power Station | 15 |
| Loy Yang B | 10 |
| Colongra | 10 |
| Jeerelang | 10 |
| Snapper Point | 10 |
| Valley Power GPG | 4 |
| Condamine Power Station | 4 |
| Bell Bay GGT | 3 |
| Katherine Power Station | 3 |
| Oakey PS | 1 |
| Dry Creek Power Station | 0 |
| Newport | 0 |
| Laverton | 0 |
| Roma Power Station | 0 |
| Mintaro Power Station | 0 |
| Ron Goodin Power Station | 0 |
Regional
Where the Gas Came From
Two demand measures, side by side and never added. End use counts facilities reporting directly and is blind where consumption arrives through a transmission system: Victoria's end-use figure understates its real load, because Melbourne is served by a pipeline rather than facilities that report demand directly. Delivered counts what pipelines put into the state, which catches that load but double counts wherever a pipeline feeds a facility that also reports. No net column: one balance would have to pick a side and be wrong for half the states.
| State | Supply (TJ) | End use (TJ) | Delivered by pipeline (TJ) |
|---|---|---|---|
| VIC | 634 | 24 | 15 |
| NT | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| SA | 0 | 0 | 30 |
| East coast | 634 | 25 | 46 |
Flow
Who's Supplying, Who's Consuming
Net supply and demand by location · Aug. 30, 2026 · TJ/day
Each location's net position on the gas day: a green bar to the right means it produced more than it used, a dark bar to the left means the opposite. Curtis Island's LNG export is called out on its own, since at roughly 8x the next-largest flow it would otherwise swamp every other location on the chart.
- Net supply
- Net demand
- LNG export
Reading notes: what this chart is and isn't
Not a map: the Bulletin Board publishes no coordinates, so this is a ranked chart, not a geographic one. Coverage is the eastern system plus the Northern Territory, connected via the Northern Gas Pipeline; Western Australia runs its own, separate Gas Bulletin Board and is out of scope, which is why it never appears here.
A location's net position comes from production, storage withdrawal and end-use figures reported there directly, not derived from the pipeline flows in the table below, which are a separate, allocated inference. The two will not reconcile exactly, by construction rather than by error.
The largest flows, as figures
| From | To | TJ/day | Via |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iona | Adelaide | 34 | PCA |
| Iona | Regional VIC | 23 | MPL, PCA |
| Iona | Regional SA | 17 | PCA |
Capacity
How Full the Pipelines Were
Throughput on gas day Aug. 30, 2026 against the capacity in force that day, not today's. 0 of 4 pipelines ran above 90%. Capacity is the largest rated leg, never the sum: a bidirectional pipeline publishes one rating each way, and adding them would invent capacity that cannot exist at once.
- Under 90%
- 90% or over
- Denominator limit, not scarcity
Our arithmetic, not an AEMO measure. AEMO's own view is the linepack adequacy flag, shown in the constraint history below.
Constraint
When the System Has Been Tight
One cell per pipeline per available gas day, Aug. 11, 2026 to Sept. 2, 2026. 3 of 53 pipelines were flagged at least once; only those are drawn. The band on top counts pipelines flagged each day.
The current AEMO adequacy file carries a short outlook rather than a 90-day archive. These are the real published days; the full comparison will appear after the historical backfill, without changing the weekly update routine.
- Adequate
- Threatened
- Inadequate
A pipeline flagged on most of its assessed days is set in italics below: it is chronically tight, a structural fact about the network, not an event. Reading it the same as a pipeline flagged once turns a permanent condition into a false alarm, which is how a monitor loses its reader.
Chronic: Comet Ridge to Wallumbilla Pipeline (12 days), GLNG Gas Transmission Pipeline (12 days)
Episodic: Kurri Kurri Lateral Pipeline (1 day)
Storage
Current Storage Holdings
Gas held across the east coast, July 12, 2026 to Aug. 29, 2026. The current record is shown now; the seasonal comparison needs at least one prior year of the same facilities.
Nothing is wrong with the holdings shown below. The prior-year archive has not yet been loaded on this deployment, so drawing a median line or percentage would invent a comparison the data cannot support.
- Held
| Facility | Held (TJ) |
|---|---|
| Roma Underground Storage (RUGS) | 15,130 |
| Iona Underground Gas Storage | 12,992 |
| Silver Springs | 8,490 |
| Moomba LDB Storage | 6,300 |
| Newcastle Gas Storage (NGS) | 668 |
| LNG Storage Dandenong | 606 |
| Total, like for like | 44,185 |
Export vs Domestic
An Export System With a Domestic Remainder
Supply against end-use demand, July 12, 2026 to Aug. 30, 2026 (90 days). The filled band is LNG export: over this window it averaged 89% of all end-use gas. The gap between the export band and the demand line is the domestic remainder: generation, large industry and distribution combined.
- Supply
- End-use demand
- LNG export (of demand)
Data currency: refreshed weekly on Monday, currently to Aug. 30, 2026
| Source | Covers | Position | Margin | Last refreshed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| flows | July 12, 2026 to Aug. 30, 2026 | 1 day behind | 30 days | 31 Aug 2026 09:08 |
| forecasts | Aug. 11, 2026 to Sept. 6, 2026 | 6 days ahead | forward outlook, nothing lost | 31 Aug 2026 09:08 |
| linepack_adequacy | Aug. 11, 2026 to Sept. 2, 2026 | 2 days ahead | forward outlook, nothing lost | 31 Aug 2026 09:08 |
| missing | Aug. 10, 2025 to Aug. 29, 2026 | 2 days behind | 363 days | 31 Aug 2026 09:08 |
Reference: 158 registered facilities, 45 pipelines, 768 connection points
Registered Facilities
| Type | Total | Active |
|---|---|---|
| Pipeline | 45 | 45 |
| Production | 43 | 43 |
| Gas-powered generation | 42 | 42 |
| Large user | 10 | 10 |
| Compression | 7 | 7 |
| Storage | 7 | 7 |
| LNG export | 3 | 3 |
| Blended distribution | 1 | 1 |
| All facilities | 158 |
- 25 locations, of which 4 are trading hubs
- 768 connection points, 325 mapped to a demand zone
- 78 rated capacity legs in force on Aug. 30, 2026, of which 22 pipelines carry more than one (the reverse-haul signal), across 15 basins and 55 linepack zones
- 346 ratings archived since 2019: the re-rating history, not a count of legs
Pipelines
| Pipeline | Operator | Legs in force | Largest leg (TJ/day) | Connection points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| APLNG Pipeline | Australia Pacific LNG Pty Limited | 1 | 1,760 | 23 |
| Amadeus Gas Pipeline | — | 1 | 165 | 20 |
| Atlas Gas Pipeline | Jemena Darling Downs Pipeline (3) P/L | 1 | 54 | 2 |
| Atlas to Reedy Creek Pipeline | APA Group | 1 | 189 | 2 |
| BassGas to Pakenham Pipeline | Beach Energy (Operations) Limited | 2 | 67 | 4 |
| Berwyndale to Wallumbilla Pipeline | — | 2 | 276 | 5 |
| Bomaderry Gas Pipeline | Shoalhaven Starches | 1 | 42 | 2 |
| Bonaparte Gas Pipeline | — | 1 | 108 | 3 |
| Braemar 2 Pipeline (B2PL) | Arrow Braemar 2 Pty Ltd | 1 | 219 | 9 |
| Braemar Pipeline | Braemar Power Project Pty Ltd | 4 | 120 | 8 |
| Carpentaria Pipeline | — | 2 | 119 | 11 |
| Central West Pipeline (CWP) | — | 1 | 13 | 6 |
| Colongra Gas Pipeline | Jemena Colongra Pty Ltd | 1 | 43 | 2 |
| Comet Ridge to Wallumbilla Pipeline | GLNG Operations Pty Ltd | 2 | 950 | 11 |
| Darling Downs Pipeline | — | 6 | 550 | 15 |
| E04 Pipeline | QGC Pty Limited | 2 | 180 | 4 |
| Eastern Gas Pipeline | Jemena Eastern Gas Pipeline (1) Pty Ltd | 1 | 349 | 21 |
| GLNG Gas Transmission Pipeline | GLNG Operations Pty Ltd | 1 | 1,430 | 12 |
| Kurri Kurri Lateral Pipeline | APA Group | 2 | 60 | 3 |
| LYB Transmission Pipeline | LYB Operations & Maintenance Pty Ltd | 1 | 146 | 3 |
| McArthur River Pipeline | Power and Water Corporation | 1 | 15 | 2 |
| Moomba to Adelaide Pipeline System | Epic Energy South Australia Pty Ltd | 2 | 252 | 38 |
| Moomba to Sydney Pipeline System | — | 4 | 590 | 46 |
| Mortlake Pipeline (MPL) | SEA Gas | 1 | 150 | 3 |
| Northern Gas Pipeline | Jemena Northern Gas Pipeline Pty Ltd | 2 | 90 | 4 |
| Palm Valley Pipeline | APT AM Holdings Pty Ltd | 1 | 16 | 7 |
| Port Campbell to Adelaide Pipeline (PCA) | SEA Gas | 1 | 259 | 15 |
| Port Campbell to Iona Pipeline (PCI) | SEA Gas | 2 | 400 | 16 |
| Queensland Gas Pipeline | Jemena Queensland Gas Pipeline (1) P/L | 2 | 148 | 20 |
| Reedy Creek to Wallumbilla Pipeline | — | 2 | 520 | 5 |
| Roma - Brisbane Pipeline | — | 2 | 167 | 32 |
| Roma North (Mimas) Gas Pipeline | Stuart Petroleum Cooper Basin Gas | 2 | 54 | 3 |
| Roma North Gas Pipeline | Jemena Roma North Pipeline Pty Ltd | 1 | 53 | 2 |
| Roma Pipeline | Origin Energy Electricity Limited | 2 | 19 | 3 |
| Silver Springs Pipeline | OGT Energy Pty Ltd | 2 | 40 | 4 |
| South East Pipeline System | Epic Energy South Australia Pty Ltd | 1 | 16 | 5 |
| South East South Australia Pipeline (SESA) | — | 1 | 40 | 4 |
| South West Queensland Pipeline | — | 2 | 512 | 24 |
| Tallawarra Pipeline | EnergyAustralia Tallawarra Pipelines P/L | 1 | 192 | 2 |
| Tanami Gas Pipeline | AGI Tanami Pty Limited | 2 | 7 | 3 |
| Tasmania Gas Pipeline | Tasmanian Gas Pipeline Pty Ltd | 1 | 129 | 18 |
| VicHub Pipeline | Jemena VicHub Pipeline Pty Ltd | 1 | 150 | 4 |
| Victorian Transmission System | Australian Energy Market Operator Ltd | 5 | 1,114 | 152 |
| Wallumbilla to Gladstone Pipeline | QGC Pty Limited | 1 | 1,598 | 12 |
| Wickham Point Pipeline | — | 2 | 100 | 6 |
Storage
- Dandenong Liquefaction Plant · BOC Limited
- Iona Underground Gas Storage · Lochard Energy (Iona Operations) Pty Ltd
- LNG Storage Dandenong · operator not published
- Moomba LDB Storage · Santos Limited
- Newcastle Gas Storage (NGS) · AGL Energy Limited
- Roma Underground Storage (RUGS) · Santos CSG Pty Ltd
- Silver Springs · OGT Energy Pty Ltd
Trading Hubs
- Wallumbilla Hub (QLD) · APA Wallumbilla Hub
- Moomba Hub (SA) · APA Moomba Hub
- Iona Hub (VIC) · Supply, demand and transfer of gas within the Iona hub
- Longford Hub (VIC) · Production and transfer of gas within the Longford hub