Venice Energy is floating South Australian energy answers

The proponent of South Australia's proposed liquid natural gas terminal finally has a name.

Late last week Venice Energy launched itself quietly into the public domain through a new company website that reveals it is taking a more structured approach to a plan to foster an estimated $800 million of new gas and electricity capacity at Adelaide's industrial hub, Pelican Point.

Venice, whose initial project investigation has been jointly funded by Japan's industrial megalith Mitsubishi, has divided its project into two distinct stages and pressed the accelerator on the LNG re-gasification phase given it is the gateway for its pitch to resolve South Australia's present and future energy security challenges.

One aspect of the project that is avoided by the website is a new fluidity to the way the discrete wings of Venice Energy's ambitions might be funded. Until June Mitsubishi had an exclusive call over the future of the project. That exclusivity has been allowed to lapse. But that does not mean that Mitsubishi has left Venice.

The Japanese trading house is still the most likely supplier of gas to the project. But it has freed Venice Energy to offer a more obliging welcome to a growing number of approaches from potential suppliers and off-takers that are interested in taking a position in the project.