Australia’s biggest gas pipeline operator, APA Group, will acquire Alinta Energy’s power assets in Western Australia’s remote Pilbara region for $1.7 billion, including debt, as it looks to move into in power generation.
Alinta Energy Pilbara is an energy infrastructure business underpinned by contracted operational assets (gas and solar power generation, gas transmission, battery energy storage systems (BESS) and electricity transmission), together with an extensive development pipeline of projects (wind, solar, gas reciprocating engines, BESS and associated electricity transmission), located in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.
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To fund the purchase, APA Group intends to raise $750 million in capital through new equity.
APA Group CEO Adam Watson said the deal was a renewable energy market play, tapping into the desire on the part of the government and miners in Pilbara to make the transition to renewables.
“That’s the model that’s played out in the more progressive, decarbonisation-led regions of the world like the UK and the Netherlands,” he told Reuters in an interview.
“The remote grid sections of Australia need to do the same thing,” he said.
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Alinta’s Pilbara assets include two dual-fuel gas- and diesel-fired power stations—the 210MW Port Hedland Station and the 238MW Newman Power Station as well as 200km of high-voltage transmission lines. Renewable and storage assets include Chichester Solar Farm and 900MW worth of projects in development.
Alinta said the sale would help it focus on ambitious projects such as the 1GW Spinifex Offshore Wind Project in Portland, Victoria, and the 900MW Oven Mountain Pumped Hydro project in New South Wales.
