APA Group (APA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the APA Group Investor Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Adam Watson, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for coming together at Shore. I'm joined by Garrick Rollason, our CFO, as well as our Investor Relations team. I'm excited to say that we're here to update you on the joint development agreement we've just signed to partner with CS Energy to develop and own the Brigalow Peaking power plant. Now we ordinarily wouldn't make an investor call for an announcement like this, but given it's our first major GPG project to be delivered by APA for some time, we thought it was important use time to ask some questions and absorb the project. So I must say first up that there will be details we can't yet answer as we work our way towards FID on the project and specifics such as the estimated cost of the project are not yet finalized, but we'll do our best to try and outline the mechanics of the project and answer again, as many questions as we can. So 3 key takeaways from the announcement. Number one, APA will develop and own 80% of the Brigalow power plant with CS Energy owning the remaining 20%. This is a clear demonstration of our intention to develop strategic partnerships as we execute our growth agenda. This ownership structure aligns interest with our customers and also provides a compelling funding arrangement with a government-owned entity. The second point is that we enter into a 25-year hedge offtake agreement with CS Energy. Think of it like a tolling charge where we have a minimum return, which is above our hurdle rates and a small exposure to upside by aligning interest with CS Energy, who will operate and trade the asset. In short, it's very, very similar to what you've been used to with, for example, our traditional pipeline arrangements. And the third point is that we're funding this from our existing balance sheet. The project forms part of our $2.1 billion organic growth pipeline, and it's going to be funded via debt. Now a little bit more detail before we open to questions. We know significant investment in GPG capacity is needed to firm the integration of renewables in our energy system, and APA is well positioned to capture growth through emerging projects on both the East and West Coast. The proposed 400-megawatt Brigalow Peaking Power plant will be located next to CS Energy's existing Kogan Creek Power Station in Queensland. The project will provide firming capacity for peak electricity demand periods, complementing variable, renewable energy. Following the announcement today, we'll work with CS Energy to progress necessary external and government approvals to finalize several development matters and to develop and execute full form documentation, which we expect to occur next year. Following entry into full form documentation, APA will lead delivery of the project under a construction management agreement and on satisfaction of the conditions precedent, we will acquire an 80% ownership interest in the project. CS Energy will operate and maintain the plant and retain a 20% ownership interest. Final capital expenditure will be subject to detailed engineering design, which is expected to be completed in the first half of calendar year 2026. Importantly, orders for long lead time equipment have already been progressed with GE Vernova appointed to deliver the gas turbines for the project. CS Energy also already has in place an agreement for gas supply, and APA has a separate agreement, as you know, in place with CS Energy to deliver the project's lateral pipeline and storage facility. APA will limit its exposure to wholesale electricity prices associated with the operation of the plant through a proposed 25-year hedge offtake agreement with CS Energy, which will see APA generate returns under an inflation-linked revenue arrangement. The agreement also incorporates a small portion of variable revenue, providing the potential for higher returns. As part of the joint development agreement, APA will provide early funding to the project up to the date of acquiring an 80% interest. APA's investment in the plant is expected to deliver returns consistent with our required return hurdles and will be funded from our existing balance sheet. As I said, this project creates momentum in our GPG growth strategy. It builds on APA's existing capabilities and assets in Queensland and complements our separate agreement with CS Energy to deliver the project lateral pipeline. APA will update the market as the Brigalow Peaking Power Plant progresses, including when the long-form agreements are executed, likely in the middle of calendar year 2026. And as we progress this and other growth projects, we'll continue to maintain our focus on efficient and prudent capital allocation to ensure we prioritize the attractive opportunities for APA security holders. So hopefully, that was a good short summary. With that, I'll take questions, and Garrick is obviously here with me as well to take any questions you may have.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from Tom Allen with UBS.

So the structure of this arrangement you've announced, it sounds a little like a finance lease, but what sounds a little different is that APA would own 80% of the project and then not operate or maintain it in particular. So I typically would have thought you'd see a more equitable split of the project ownership. So given it's obviously a long-life asset, rotating equipment, it's a little more complicated than, say, a battery or anything of that nature. So it sounds like a different structure. I was wondering if you could point to another example of this type of structure being applied in gas-fired power station where you own the majority, but you don't get to maintain it.

Yes. So Tom, think of it -- and thanks for the question, by the way. So Tom, think of it not dissimilar to what we do with most of our projects. So we will obviously work with CS Energy, but have a very significant amount of control as it relates to the development of the project. Now CS Energy has already ordered the turbine. So that's great. So we're a couple of years head start on the project. We will now work with CS Energy to appoint a balance of plant contractor to effectively finalize the construction of the plant. Then once it's operational, when we talk about operations, we're talking about dispatch. So obviously, CS Energy are going to be operating this as a peaking power plant with the rest of its portfolio with its wind and solar and coal-fired power generation. But in particular, to complement the wind and solar, they will undertake the dispatch arrangement. So that's not something that we would ordinarily do. There might be arrangements in the future where that is an opportunity for us or an option for us to do that. But CS Energy will undertake the dispatch. Now again, there are different models on whether or not we maintain it. We will obviously have under the joint venture arrangements and with 80% ownership, we'll have obviously very strong control over how the asset is maintained and through the usual processes that you would expect from a governance perspective. But in this case, in particular, because the plant is on an existing CS Energy site, it just made sense for them to have their maintenance crews, if you think of it in terms of blue collar, their maintenance crews operated. So think about it as we would still have rights over the white collar side of the scheduled maintenance arrangements, but CS Energy have control over the actual physical maintenance of the asset.

Okay. Is there an example you can point to for this deal? Or is it a first of its kind? Because your last comment there was helpful because I'm specifically interested is that your operator also maintained that it only owns 20% and it sounds like they capture most of the upside on the variable energy. So they're incentivized to operate it in a certain way. So looking for a little bit more detail on what you can share from a proposed operating agreement or how you share the risk to make sure that as the long-term asset owner, the asset is going to be looked after in the way that you would like as a long-term owner.

Yes. Look, again, it's a take-or-pay arrangement, which is very -- that's basically pretty much all of our portfolio is take-or-pay arrangements. In terms of the maintenance of the asset, it's no different to a steel mill outsourcing the blue collar maintenance, or a toll road the blue collar maintenance to a maintenance service provider. It just so happens that they're going to be CS Energy people. So yes, I don't see it being much different to many other arrangements. I think the important thing to remember is there's not -- there hasn't -- there's really only been one significant gas-fired power generator developed in Australia over the last decade, and that's the Hunter Power project, which is scheduled to be commissioned shortly, which forms part of our Kurri Kurri Lateral Pipeline. So you're right, there's not a lot of precedents for this. But as we need to build out a lot more GPG in the country, this is a model that we think is going to make a lot of sense.

Okay. Are we able to get a little bit more color on the indicative CapEx because there's obviously lots of different greenfield project opportunities out there that APA would like to participate in. But financing that large program of greenfield investment is the challenge that we need to be comfortable the APA can manage. So given what we're discussing the opportunity today, and it sounds like there's still a lot more detailed commercial arrangements to work through over the next 6 to 9 months, but be helpful to understand the size of the CapEx and the new lateral and storage pipeline agreement, like that's one that's much -- we've seen that type of deal before with Kurri Kurri. Keen to understand the size of this too and any commercial arrangements that might occur with the lateral and storage pipeline, too?

Yes. So obviously, we do have to continue to work through finalizing the final cost of the project as we head towards FID. And obviously, when we come out next year with an FID, we'll confirm that price. What I can tell you now is that our expectation is that the total cost of the project will be over $1 billion. So obviously, we will be 80% of that. So -- but I can't really give you any more other than to confirm that it's going to be over $1 billion. So it's a sizable project, which is good. We want to be able to deploy capital under a 25-year offtake agreement, returns above our hurdle rates, forms part of our $2.1 billion organic pipeline, and can be funded on the existing balance sheet. We have no requirement to raise equity to fund this. And if we did, we would have obviously announced that at the time. So we think from a funding perspective, it's great. Again, a 20-year contract. In addition to that, as you noted, we are also building the lateral pipeline and storage facility. That's about $150 million. That is in addition to the CapEx that will be spent on the power plant. That's secured by a 35-year GTA that we signed with CS Energy on that during the year. And also CS Energy has -- they go out and they procure the gas, not APA, and they've entered into a 10-year GSA with Senex Energy back in October. So CS Energy has done a fantastic job at future-proofing this, they've obviously ordered the long lead items quite some time ago, in fact, back in 2023. So we've got a head start as it relates to the ability to be able to bring this to market quickly. And the reason I say that is because you're obviously looking at for how long we fund some of the development costs and the lead up to this and when do the cash flow start coming in. So that will occur quite quickly. We're expecting around 2028 for it to be commissioned. And obviously, we've modeled this very extensively and fits neatly with our development plans, our distribution profiles and our funding arrangements.

If I can sneak one last one, and I'll hand it off to others. Just on the variable revenue. Just a bit of a steer on how to index that revenue. So there's obviously CPI index revenue is what we're hearing for the majority. But for the upside, is that -- given it's a Peaking Plant, will it be the Queensland $300 a megawatt hour cap price that provides the index for the upside or downside on the variable component?

Yes. Look, we're working through that as we speak. We've got a proposed model that we've got in draft with CS Energy, and we will continue to finalize that over the next couple of months. The key thing there is that we're not taking -- because we don't have dispatch rights or dispatch control over it, we don't want to sort of take any exposure to how the asset is dispatched into the market. So think of it like taking a general exposure to market prices to electricity prices that get reset, probably going to get reset every year so that we're not sort of on the hook for a long period of time. But the key point to make is it's not a material amount of money. The material contract is a very vanilla, think of it like a capacity charge. We're calling it a tolling arrangement, but a 25-year inflation-linked tolling arrangement, which is what you've been accustomed to with APA for a long period of time.

Your next question comes from Gordon Ramsay with RBC Capital Markets.

Congratulations on the announcement, Adam and team. Just very quickly on the construction management agreement, you're responsible for delivering the project under that. What's the nature of that agreement? Is it fixed price turnkey lump sum? Or can you comment on what kind of exposure APA has through that?

Yes, we're working -- thanks for the question, Gordon. So we're going to be working through that as we speak. So I think the first thing to note is that the majority of the CapEx will be the actual equipment. So it will be the turbine. So just for everyone's benefit, there's going to be 12 derivative open cycle turbines. They have already been ordered. As I said, they've been ordered for some time now, and they're going to be -- we're expecting those to be delivered next year. We'll obviously be funding the progressive CapEx required to bring those into Queensland. But obviously, that's the biggest exposure from a cost perspective, is actually securing that equipment and those prices are already locked in. So then you've got the balance of plant contractor that effectively is somebody who's going to come in and put that kit together. One of the important things to note with this project, and that's not to say that we wouldn't do other projects, which are different, but this is 12, as I said, 12 aero derivative turbines. So it's more sort of replicated. You obviously, you're putting 12 turbines in of the same turbine. So it's more of a plug-and-play type arrangement. I'm not trying to diminish the complexity that gets -- that will get involved in that. But that's the arrangement that we're working on. And we've got a delivery team that's well experienced in these. We've built that team up very heavily over the last 12 to 24 months, and we've got a lot of confidence that they'll be able to performance manage the contract to deliver that on time and on budget.

And just one more. This is a Garrick question. I think in the previous briefing, the company had the roundtable, there was commentary made about guiding to returns of greater than 150 basis points for above APA's WACC for its investment in GPG projects. Can you confirm this project certainly fits into that criteria?

Yes. I'll reiterate, thanks, Gordon, just what Adam said previously that return on this asset and this investment will be consistent with what we've told the market in terms of that target and all returns. So yes, in short.

Your next question comes from Adrian Atkins with Morningstar.

Some of my questions have been answered. I'm just wondering what happens to this asset after 25 years? And would it be depreciated over 25 years?

Yes. So the way -- thanks for the question, Adrian. The way that we look at funding these projects and whether it's a project in our remote grid or a pipeline asset or GPG, we obviously look at it from a returns perspective, and Garrick has just confirmed that it's consistent with our return hurdles, which is good. And there's a little bit of upside here, obviously, but we think that the returns are very attractive in this. And the other thing that we look at is cash payback as well. So we always ensure that we've got a payback. We typically try and get the payback within the first half of an asset life, or there or thereabouts. So again, I can't get into the specifics of the detail of that yet because we need to work through that over the next several months. But again, we will get to the end of that asset. It will be -- we will have recovered a return on and a return of capital from that asset. And yes, and we think it's a great outcome from that regard. I might just hand to Garrick to just going to clarify some accounting things that you'll see.

Yes. So the useful asset life from an accounting perspective will be 35 years. So there will be value on balance sheet at the end of the 25 years, and we will continue to depreciate for the remaining 10 years of life.

But your expectation would be that you just recontracted for that additional life after this 25-year contract?

Yes. Look, these assets last for a very long period of time. You can't see a world where you're not going to need GPG to support the renewables. And as coal is being retired, its role is going to be become even more important. So that would be expected. But obviously, from a value perspective, we don't contribute from an NPV or an IRR perspective, we don't attribute any value beyond the 25-year contract.

There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Adam Watson for closing remarks.

Great. Well, thank you again, everyone. It was only ever intended to be a really quick call. And again, we ordinarily wouldn't do this for an individual project. But given this is something that hasn't been announced for some time, we just thought it would be worthwhile to make sure that we're clear around what we're delivering here and something that we're very excited by, work to be done, but I think you can see that we've built the capability and we've positioned ourselves well to be able to support our customers and in particular, in this case, the government-owned corporation with their ambitions to continue to bring in more renewables into their energy mix and firm it with GPG. So look, with that, we'll obviously provide another update on this next year as things progress. But importantly, I think you can see that we're taking the actions to execute our strategy to simplify our business. We'd like to -- we expect to be making announcement around the completion of our networks divestment very soon. And yes, and I think that can then enable us to focus on exciting projects like this. So thank you for your time, and we'll speak to you soon.

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.