Methodology

Sources

The Australian fossil fuel export data come from the Department of Environment and Energy (DEE), the Office of the Chief Economist (OCE) and the International Energy Association (IEA). The DEE publishes data for each financial year on the total export of all Australian coal, gas, liquid natural gas and oil. The DEE also provides the total Australian export of hard, black, coking and thermal coal. The OCE publishes quarterly data for the total export and destinations of Australian hard, thermal and coking coal. The IEA publishes the total export and destinations of all Australian gas, and liquid natural gas. Data on the fossil fuel exports from non-Australia countries is obtained from the OECDiLibrary.

Calculation of fossil fuel export emissions

Chimney emissions from industrial lignite power plants.
Data from various sources is either displayed directly or is used to calculate the emissions associated with the combustion of the fossil fuel. The standard physical units are Million tonnes (Mt), the standard energy units are Petajoules (PJ) and standard emission units are GtCO2-e (Gt of CO2 equivalent emission). Depending on the unit used in the fossil fuel data, an emission factor and a calorific value – if needed – are used to calculate the emissions. The DEE data are first converted from financial years (from July to June) into calendar years by estimating that the data for a given calendar year is equivalent to the data of the financial year starting on July of that year.

Exports

Table 1. List of Australian export data with their sources, units and type of conversion applied from the source to the database.

Data typeData Sub-typeDivisionUnitsSourceSource acronymOperation
CoalAllTotal for Australia onlyktDepartment of the Environment and Energy (2018), Australian Energy Statistics, Table NDEECoking Coal + Thermal Coal
Conversion from financial year to calendar year
 Black CoalTotal for Australia onlyPJDepartment of the Environment and Energy (2018), Australian Energy Statistics, Table JDEEDirect input converted from financial year to calendar year
 Coking CoalTotal for Australia onlyktDepartment of the Environment and Energy (2018), Australian Energy Statistics, Table NDEEDirect input converted from financial year to calendar year
 Coking CoalBy country of exportMtDepartment of Industry, Innovation and Science (2019), Office of the Chief Economist, Resources and Energy Quarterly – June 2019OCESum the quarterly data for each year and for “high quality” and “other” metallurgical coal
 Hard CoalBy country of exportMtDepartment of Industry, Innovation and Science (2019), Office of the Chief Economist, Resources and Energy Quarterly – June 2019OCESum the quarterly data for each year and for “high quality”, “other” metallurgical coal and thermal coal
 Thermal CoalTotal for Australia onlyktDepartment of the Environment and Energy (2018), Australian Energy Statistics, Table NDEEDirect input Conversion from financial year to calendar year
 Thermal CoalBy country of exportMtDepartment of Industry, Innovation and Science (2019), Office of the Chief Economist, Resources and Energy Quarterly – June 2019OCESum the quarterly data for each year for thermal coal
GasAll GasBy country of exportMcmOrganisation for Economic Cooperation and Development IEA Natural Gas Information Statistics, Natural gas imports by origin (2018)OECD GasDirect input: Imports by origin, Natural gas (Million cubic metres)
 All GasTotal for Australia onlyPJDepartment of the Environment and Energy (2018), Australian Energy Statistics, Table JDEEDirect input converted from financial year to calendar year
 All GasBy country of exportTJOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development IEA Natural Gas Information Statis-tics, Natural gas imports by origin (2018)OECD GasDirect input: Imports by origin, Natural gas (Terajoules)
 Liquid Natural Gas (LNG)Total for Australia onlyktDepartment of the Environment and Energy (2018), Australian Energy Statistics, Table NDEEDirect input: LNG
Conversion from financial year to calendar year
 Liquid Natural Gas (LNG)By country of exportMcmOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development IEA Natural Gas Information Statis-tics, Natural gas imports by origin (2018)OECD GasDirect input: Imports by origin, of which Liquified natural gas (Million cubic metres)
 Liquid Natural Gas (LNG)By country of exportTJOrganisation for Economic Cooperation and Development IEA Natural Gas Information Statistics, Natural gas imports by origin (2018)OECD GasDirect input: Im-ports by origin, of which Liquified natural gas (Terajoules)
OilOilTotal for Australia onlyMLDepartment of the Environment and Energy (2018), Australian Energy Statistics, Table NDEEDirect input: Crude oil and ORF
Conversion from financial year to calendar year
 OilTotal for Australia onlyPJDepartment of the Environment and Energy (2018), Australian Energy Statistics, Table JDEEDirect input: Crude oil and ORF
Conversion from financial year to calendar year

Conversions to emissions

All units are converted to standard units:
Coal: Mt | Oil: ML | Gas: Mcm | Energy: PJ | Emissions: GtCO2-e

When fuel data is available in energy units, those are converted directly to emission using the CO2 emission for combustion factor. If the data is not available in energy units, the volume or weight units are first converted using the net calorific value. The equivalence in CO2 emissions are calculated as follow:
Table. 2 Summary of the conversion factors used

FuelNet Calorific value (TJ/Gg)CO2 emission for combustion (kg/TJ)
Coking Coal28.294600
Crude Oil42.373300
Natural Gas Liquids44.264200
Natural Gas48.056100

Table. 3 Sources reference list

AcronymFull NameLink
DEEDepartment of Environment and Energy (2018)https://www.energy.gov.au/publications/australian-energy-update-2018
OCEOffice of the Chief Economisthttps://publications.industry.gov.au/publications/ resourcesandenergyquarterlyjune2019/index.html
OECD GasOrganisation for Economic Cooperation and Development iLibrary (2018)https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/energy/data/iea-natural-gas-information-statistics_naturgas-data-en
IPCCInternational Panel for Climate Change (2006)https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/vol2.html

References

Department of Environment and Energy (2018). Australian Energy Statistics (Table J and Table N).
https://www.industry.gov.au/data-and-publications/national-greenhouse-gas-inventory-quarterly-update-march-2021

 

Office of the Chief Economist (2019). Quaterly – Historical Data June 2019

https://publications.industry.gov.au/publications/resourcesandenergyquarterlyjune2019/index.html


International Energy Association (2018). Natural gas imports by origin, doi: 10.1787/naturgas-data-en
https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/energy/data/iea-natural-gas-information-statistics_naturgas-data-en


OECD
https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/