You guys seem to forget, the gas sits on top of tho oil, so it comes out first.
Also and most importantly, whatever is taken out of the ground us usually done by a HUGE multinational corp. not 'Australia'. They paid to get it out, THEY own it.
I look at it like this, which is the way they would;
If i have a puddle of water and 5 people dont. When i sell it to them, the MINIMUM price i sell it to ANYONE, is the MAXIMUM that ANY of those 5 will pay.
e.g. A bucket of water to one guy for $5 all the others want to pay $3, BAD LUCK, pay $5 or dont get water.
Let alone if there is only 6 of us with 90% of the puddles, we'd get together call ourselves WPEC and communicate between ourselves to find out who was buying water from who, what price and the maximum we could get, therefore setting the minimum price across the board.
Another way to look at it - Why MUST I sell my water to you at $3 when I CAN get $5 for it elsewhere?
Nothing personal, Just business.