It has also been raised at a recent round table, organised by consultancy firm Fyfe and including regulators from most Australian states and federal agencies, as well as senior industry representatives.

Its co-facilitator was EPT International managing partner Dr Christine Ehlig-Economides.

Ehlig-Economides is considered a leading authority on unconventional gas and is the Albert B Stevens Endowed Professor of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University.

Fyfe managing director Mark Dayman said the firm had organised the event as a way to bring together industry heavyweights to discuss common issues.

“Australia is at a tipping point in the development of its unconventional energy reserves,” he said.

“We can either progress and develop the huge resources we have to the benefit of the whole of Australia or miss the opportunity.

“In Queensland, government and industry has been able to work closely together and that state now has three major coal seam gas projects coming on stream.

“This has resulted in a huge boost to areas of regional Queensland in terms of jobs and development, as well as additional revenues to the Queensland and national economies.

“However, across the border the New South Wales the situation is much different and threatens the development of that state’s CSG resources with the loss of potential economic activity.”

Dayman said shale gas was another massive potential source of energy but required a cooperative approach from business, government and regulators to ensure the development took place in an appropriate manner.

He said many of those issues had been raised and discussed during the roundtable.

The information from the round table is to be collated into a white paper that will be presented to the federal government.