Businesses say the soaring price of gas is threatening to close them down, which could put Australia's food security at risk if the crisis is not solved soon.
But energy economist Liam Wagner, an associate professor from Adelaide University, said the impact could be worse than that.
The federal government has an emergency ability to force gas companies to send extra supply into the domestic market underAfter a meeting of Commonwealth, state and territory energy ministers on Thursday, the government is reviewing that option. It also wants to renegotiate the Heads of Agreement signed between gas exporters and the government.But a cold snap, flooding in Queensland's coal mines and outages at coal power plants have forced electricity generators to buy most of it.