Looks like Jemena also are keen – didn’t realize they were also Chinese (& Singapore) owned. Planning to go thru the Mt Isa route, and also proposing to be self-funded. True to his word, RC has obviously been talking to everyone…
Jemena lodges 'very competitive' bid to build Northern Territory gas link
by Angela Macdonald-Smith
Gas pipeline owner Jemena is lodging a bid to build a pipeline link between the Northern Territory and Queensland, which managing director Paul Adams has declared should be "very competitive" against three rivals also vying for the contract.
Costing less than $1 billion, the pipeline would run between Tennant Creek and Mount Isa and would require no up-front government funds, with keen demand from gas buyers in Queensland and further south, Mr Adams said in an interview. It could begin operating in 2018 or 2019.
Jemena is one of four parties short-listed by the NT government to build the North East Gas Interconnector, alongside APA Group, DUET Group and a company backed by China National Petroleum Corporation. Bidders were asked to consider two potential routes to link the NT with the national gas grid: Tennant Creek to Mount Isa, and a longer alternative to the south, from Alice Springs to Moomba in South Australia.
Final bids to build the line have to be submitted to the government by Wednesday, with a preferred developer to be announced in October.
APA chief executive Mick McCormack has said his company is in a strong position to provide the most competitive bid given its track record in the NT pipeline sector and its ownership of pipelines at either end of the proposed link.
But Mr Adams said Jemena, owned by State Grid Corporation of China and Singapore Power, has received strong support from gas producers and buyers keen to see a strong alternative to market leader APA in the gas transmission market.
"We think we can be competitive," he said. "This is what we do."
"Looping"
He said Jemena was proposing a scalable pipeline that could be built more rapidly and cheaply than a bigger line but could be enlarged later through compression and "looping" or the duplication of the line.
The NT is estimated to have more than 200 trillion cubic feet of gas resources in six onshore basins and 30 trillion cubic feet of offshore resources. The government is backing the pipeline to help encourage explorers in the territory to invest to commercialise reserves that could be supplied to buyers in the eastern states.
Mr Adams said Central Petroleum, Santos and others had gas available in the NT to supply into the pipeline, while the NT government has also offered to make gas available from a purchase contract held by NT-owned utility Power and Water Corporation.
On the demand side, fertiliser maker Incitec Pivot and plastics maker Qenos are among industrial users interested in purchasing gas from producers in the NT.
"Demand is like a big vacuum cleaner on one end on the eastern side," Mr Adams said, pointing to the appetite for gas from liquefied natural gas exporters in Gladstone.
He said the southern route to Moomba was more difficult and expensive because the line needed to be longer and would run through sandy terrain. It would cost about twice as much as the link to Queensland, Mr Adams added.
APA has previously suggested the Queensland link could be built for about $800 million, and the southern link would cost about $1.3 billion.
A spokesman at the Department of the NT Chief Minister Adam Giles said the submission of bids was "the final stage in a high-quality, competitive process designed to deliver the best private sector-led solution for this important project".
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