Australia’s Energy Commodity Resources 2026 now available

Geoscience Australia’s latest edition of the Australia’s Energy Commodity Resources (AECR) publication confirms Australia’s position as a reliable, competitive and globally significant energy supplier, while highlighting the nation’s growing role in the clean energy transition.

Delivering a comprehensive assessment of the nation’s non-renewable energy resources as at the end of 2024, AECR 2026 reports that energy commodity exports generated $180 billion in export earnings in 2023–24 – around 27% of Australia’s total export earnings.

Australia ranked as the eighth highest primary energy producer across the globe, accounting for 2.7% of global energy commodity production in 2024. Additionally, the nation ranked as the second-largest coal exporter (accounting for one-quarter of world trade), third-largest Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) exporter and fourth largest uranium producer. Australia held one-third of known global uranium resources and exported around eight times more energy than it imported.

Private sector expenditure on energy exploration and development continued to grow, with energy exploration totalling $1.81 billion in 2024, an increase of 25% on 2023 ($1.45 billion), and 24 major energy projects worth more than $42 billion at the committed stage in 2024.

AECR 2026 also assesses the status of emerging low carbon energy resources, including carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen, with data to the end of 2025.

The publication shows how these emerging technologies are progressing toward deployment, while noting these sectors remain at different stages of maturity. Australia’s role in CCS is growing in significance with substantial geological storage potential, ongoing regulatory development and active offshore exploration, with two projects in operation and 17 in development. Hydrogen is also progressing, with renewable hydrogen projects moving from pilot toward demonstration scale.

AECR 2026 provides an evidence base to support informed decision-making on energy security, decarbonisation and Australia’s role in regional energy markets.

The AECR 2026 digital publication is available at www.ga.gov.au/aecr2026