Mapping Australia’s gas production history: a linked open data-based dataset for energy transition analysis

Natural gas has played an important role in Australia’s energy history, serving both as a domestic fuel and a key export commodity. Yet, a comprehensive analysis of long-run production patterns across basins, operators, and regions is often constrained by fragmented and inaccessible data. While market-level data is available, consistent historical data at the field, basin, and state levels remains largely absent from the open domain. To address this gap, this paper introduces an open-source, harmonised dataset of east coast gas production in Australia, compiled from archival and contemporary sources using the linked open data (LOD) framework. By integrating diverse sources into a consistent structure, the dataset enables reproducible, transparent, and extensible analysis of gas production at multiple spatial and temporal scales. The LOD approach also facilitates dynamic linking with related datasets – such as prices, emissions, and energy trade, supporting richer cross-domain insights. The dataset is used to map historical trajectories, assess production heterogeneity across basins, and identify structural shifts driven by policy, market dynamics, and technological change. The analysis highlights critical inflection points, including basin opening discovery wells and pipeline completions, the rise of coal seam gas, the expansion of LNG exports, and the declining role of conventional basins. The dataset provides a reliable input for scenario building, infrastructure planning, and emissions accounting. Methodologically, it demonstrates how disparate datasets can be combined into a living, linked resource, offering a replicable approach for future energy research.