From today's Australian. Makes ts even cheaper than previously...

From today's Australian.

Makes ts even cheaper than  previously thought.  sounds like time for a cost option comparison  update...

Adl

December 11, 2014 12:00Am
Tim Boreham

Criterion Columnist
Melbourne
https://plus.google.com/116956110402704936193
APA Group (APA) $7.97 (trading halt)
APA chief Mick McCormack admits there’s a “sticker shock” element to the $US5 billion ($6.05bn) paid for the 540km pipeline linking the QCLNG project on Curtis Island with the Surat Basin source gas. That’s $9.25 million for every kilometre of the snaking, gleaming infrastructure.
“People say it’s a hefty price and in an absolute sense it is,’’ McCormack says. But he argues APA merely worked back from the prescribed $US383m of annual EBITDA that will flow from the minimum 20-year take-or-pay contract. The ensuing multiple of 13 times is actually less than the 14 times the market ascribes to APA, which owns Moomba to Sydney, Moomba to Brisbane and Sydney to Melbourne pipelines. Other infrastructure assets such as toll roads and desal plants have commanded multiples in the high 20s.
Evidently, though, the price proved too ritzy for other bidders, including AMP Capital.
McCormack says while other bidders would have bought an orphan asset, APA has the potential of linking its new toy with the other pipelines, shipping gas south if domestic demand dictates.