Australia's new shale basin Beetaloo sends first gas to market

"It means we have the security of supply," Northern Territory Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said before turning on the gas from a wellhead with Madeleine King, the federal government's resources minister.

"It means we can really start to focus on making sure our generation poles and wires business is running as efficiently as possible so that costs don't have to continue to go up."

The project faces plenty of hurdles including the need for billions of dollars in pipeline capacity as well as political challenges including Australia's new policies requiring data centres to be primarily powered by renewable energy and LNG projects to reserve 20% of their gas for the local market.

Tamboran CEO Todd Abbott, a veteran of the U.S. shale industry, said the company would focus first on sending gas to Darwin, then it had "some technical things that we'll work through, and regulatory things," before further expansion.