A shortlist of companies vying to construct the North East Gas Interconnector, which will connect the Northern Territory with the East Coast, has been announced. The government is now confident that the project will go ahead.
A panel of experts has spent a month assessing the proposals and has nominated the following four companies to go through to the final stage of the process which will close in September 2015 with a successful proponent being announced shortly thereafter.
The four shortlisted companies are:
- APA Group,
- DDG Operations Pty Ltd (DUET),
- Merlin Energy Australia Pty Ltd
- SGSP (Australia) Assets Pty Ltd (Jemena).
NT Chief Minister Adam Giles said that “the North East Gas Interconnector is a critical piece of economic development infrastructure and a priority major project for the Territory Government.”
It would link the NT to the East Coast via a route between either Alice Springs and Moomba or Tennant Creek and Mount Isa.
The quality of the submissions through the Government’s competitive process for the pipeline’s construction has been so high that the Territory Government now feels it is inevitable that this vital pipeline will be built.
It is estimated that the Territory has more than 200 trillion cubic feet of gas resources in six onshore basins – potentially enough gas to power Australia for more than 200 years and reserves almost 20 times the size of the Ichthys LNG Project. There is also more than 30 trillion cubic feet of gas offshore.