Gas prices across the eastern seaboard are set to rise, with the Australian market to be exposed to the international market for the first time.

Australia will triple its gas production in the next few years as key gas projects in Queensland ramp up production.

Despite production going up, domestic prices are set to increase as well.

Most of the new gas generated by the Queensland projects will be exported to Asia, a market that pays almost triple the wholesale price of gas compared to what Australia currently pays.

The Consumer Utility Advocacy Centre's Martin Jones says it is part of the globalisation of the economy.

"The export means we'll slowly approach the price the rest of the world is paying," he said.

"It's happened in other industries and now we're seeing it happen with gas and other resource sectors, so it's something that will eventually spread across the economy.

"I think consumers haven't really seen this coming, they could be facing bill rises of between $50 and $500 depending on how much gas they use.

"We don't see a lot of consumers really on top of that problem."

Mr Jones says consumers should start rethinking how they approach gas.

"As retail prices go up, it may no longer be the cheapest option for them depending on their circumstances and a high efficiency electrical price may be the better option," he said.

The states that are affected will be Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria and South Australia.

Tasmania's gas usage is a lot less due to a preference for electric and wood fired heating.

Western Australia and the Northern Territory are on separate systems to the east coast.

Small businesses and manufacturing worried

The prospect of gas prices rising is causing big headaches for small businesses and manufacturers that rely heavily on gas.

There are fears jobs will go as margins are squeezed.

Nicole Stewart runs Complete Workwear Laundry Services which has contracts with several major airlines.

"We're a significant gas user, we need gas for our pressing machines, we need it for our ironer, we use it for our dryers," she said.

"To be honest it's quite scary, when they put the prices of gas up we've just got to accept it whether we want to or not, and we can't necessarily get increases from our customers to compensate for even part of that.

"We're on agreements with most of the airlines we deal with, they're normally a two or three-year contract so if the gas goes up twice in that three-year period and we don't have that in our contract that we want a price increase for CPI or something along that line, we wear that increase on our own.

"I would certainly be expecting a 5 to 10 per cent increase over the coming two to five years. Now on what we already pay that's a significant increase."

The business already pays about $5,000 a month for its gas bill.

Ms Stewart has recently had an energy audit, in a bid to apply for grants to become more energy efficient.

Last month, the manufacturing industry told 7.30 that it was concerned 100,000 jobs would go in the sector.

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