APA Group has announced that it has completed the acquisition from BG Group of the Queensland Curtis LNG Pipeline. The final acquisition price is US$4.6 billion.
As part of the completion process, APA has renamed the pipeline to the Wallumbilla Gladstone Pipeline.
APA Managing Director, Mick McCormack said, “We are very pleased to have completed this acquisition which extends the footprint of our east coast gas grid to over 7,500 km across eastern Australia and represents APA’s largest ever pipeline acquisition. We have also gained two significant global customers in BG Group and China National Offshore Oil Corporation as part of this transaction and we look forward to further developing our relationship with each of them.”
The final acquisition price and tariffs were determined upon the finalisation of several parameters including US Producer Price Index – Industrial Commodities, which resulted in their decrease from that indicated at the time of initial announcement of the transaction on 10 December 2014.
APA has executed forward hedges for the period to financial year end 2016 and will execute further hedges going forward at an appropriate time and on a rolling basis.
As a result, net operating cashflow to APA from US$ income net of US$ interest cost is expected to be in the range of A$250 million to A$255 million in APA’s first full year of ownership to 30 June 2016.
