APA Group has approved an A$700 million investment in the Bulloo Interlink Pipeline, the Stage 3B of its East Coast Gas Grid expansion, after securing a five year, inflation linked gas transportation and storage agreement with Origin Energy. The agreement is take or pay, giving APA a firm revenue commitment, though its total value was not disclosed.
The roughly 335 kilometre pipeline will connect APA’s South West Queensland Pipeline with its Moomba to Sydney Pipeline and is designed for maximum transportation capacity of 800 terajoules per day. Construction is expected to begin in early 2027, subject to approvals, with commercial operations targeted for winter 2029. APA had already committed A$220 million to early works and long lead equipment in February, taking total committed spending on the project to A$920 million.
Chief executive Adam Watson said the pipeline is designed to ensure capacity does not become a constraint in meeting projected gas demand in Australia’s southern states later this decade and into the early 2030s. Across the Stage 3 expansion, APA expects to add about 30 percent more north to south transportation capacity, and more than 50 percent against 2023 levels including earlier upgrades.
The project sits inside APA’s roughly 3.5 billion dollar organic growth pipeline and will be funded from existing balance sheet capacity. It is a regulated style bet placed ahead of the shortage: the capacity is being built because forecasts say southern supply will fall short, and the Origin contract underwrites the first five years of that forecast.