APA Group (APA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. Thank you all for joining APA Group First Half '23 Results Presentation. My name is Andrew Gibson, I am the General Manager of Investor Relations of APA. [Operator Instructions] We will start with a formal presentation by our CEO, Adam Watson; and Acting CFO, Kynwynn Strong; and then we will open it up to questions. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Adam Watson, CEO and Managing Director. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Andrew. And good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. So let me start by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which I'm speaking today. First Nations people have taken care of our lands and waterways for the past 60,000 years and I send my thanks and appreciation to the Gadigal people and all First Nations people and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging. It's a privilege to join you today for the first time in my capacity as APA's CEO and Managing Director. And also joining me is APA's Acting CFO, Kynwynn Strong, as well as our Investor Relations team. A quick run-through of today's presentation order. I'll start with a short summary of our half year results, I'll then take you through our performance outcomes against our key areas of focus. Kynwynn will take you through the financials before I come back to provide some market insights. And we'll then allow time for Q&A before ending with some closing remarks. But before I start, I want to begin with what we call here at APA a safety share and let's move to Slide 4. At APA, we start all of our meetings with a discussion on safety, our customers or our behaviors. And the purpose of these discussions is to create an environment and a culture where our people feel courageous and safe to share activities that have gone well or at times not so well so that we can continuously learn and improve the way that we operate. In November last year, flooding at the Macquarie River in Bathurst resulted in a gas leak on our Young-Lithgow Pipeline that affected gas supply in the Central West of New South Wales. We were on the ground within hours finding innovative short-term solutions to deliver gas to the community and in particular to the vulnerable and over the course of the next few days, we brought together an in-house team of around 200 people from across the country to restore permanent gas supply. Now despite the immense pressure to restore gas as quickly as possible, we never lost sight of safety and as a result, there were no lost time injuries. We did have 1 minor injury where an employee touched a hot well and we've taken those learnings from this. The overall outcome, it was a strong demonstration of collaboration with our customers, with emergency services, with government and with the community. We communicated early and often to deliver a great result for our stakeholders and we did it with safety at the forefront. Now let's get into today's presentation by starting with a summary of our half year results, which is presented on Slide 5. We've delivered another solid financial performance. EBITDA is up 2.5%. Distributions are up 4%. We have reaffirmed distribution guidance of $0.55 per security for the full year. Free cash flow for the half was down 6%, but that was impacted by the timing of a large cash receipt and Kynwynn will take you through that in a moment. But without that timing issue, free cash was 2% higher than last year. And our balance sheet remains strong with no material debt refinancing required until 2025. We've made good progress on our organic growth pipeline and we acquired Basslink, which gives us another platform to expand our electricity transmission business. When we look further forward, our strategy is to be the partner of choice to deliver infrastructure solutions for the energy transition. As we see our customers' decarbonization ambitions continue to evolve, we're becoming more and more confident about APA's long-term growth outlook. To Slide 6. Last year and late last year I should say, the executive leadership team and I set up 3 priorities that we want APA to rally around. It's our people, operational excellence and creating value. Across the organization, we're holding each other to account to ensure these priorities make a positive difference for our customers, communities, partners and investors. And I'll step you through today's results in the context of these priorities. So let's start with our people and our focus here is to ensure they're safe, well, engaged and motivated. And we're making good progress as you can see on Slide 7. In the past 6 months, we achieved a 35% reduction in our total recordable injury frequency rate or TRIFR compared with the same time last year. And our female participation has improved over the year for the first time now exceeding over 30%. But despite this progress, we know there's much more to do as we strive for continuous improvement. Creating a pipeline of talented people is vital to our success. And as you can see on Slide 8, we've recently been recognized as a top employer for graduates and we ranked first in our industry category for this year's Australian Association of Graduate Employers List. As well, we've enhanced our parental leave policy to give all APA employees equal access to 18 weeks leave. These are just some examples of what we're focusing on to ensure our people are engaged and motivated. Turning now to operational excellence, which starts on Slide 9. Operational excellence is critical to our social license and has underpinned today's solid set of financial results. As I said in my opening remarks, we continue to grow our earnings at the same time as making the necessary investments in capability to ensure we can achieve sustainable long-term growth. Let's move to Slide 10. We're proud of our continued strong operational performances across our energy infrastructure portfolio. Through the half our renewable power generation assets were available around 94% of the time and we delivered our gas transmission nominations 99.9% of the time. Both of these are excellent results. We acquired Basslink during the period and moved quickly to integrate the business and ensure it was operating safely and reliably. Performance to-date has been pleasing and we continue to invest in the asset to maximize performance. Making sure our customers have their energy when they need it is key to our role in the energy transition. We've made good progress with our sustainability initiatives during the period as well as you can see on Slide 11. We appointed our First Reconciliation and First Nations Manager and started developing our Reconciliation Action Plan. We enhanced our ESG related performance disclosures and we developed and implemented a responsible procurement strategy and we continue to enhance our modern slavery risk management initiatives. Central to sustainability is the progression of our Climate Transition Plan. Our progress for the half is summarized on Slide 12. We've taken on board feedback from investors, aligning our group executive members remuneration to climate related performance and we've embedded our action plan across the business. We're on track to deliver our FY '23 commitments, including the establishment of a methane target. The progress of our Climate Transition Plan sends a clear message to our customers, communities and investors about our commitment to play a meaningful part in a lower emissions future. Moving now to Slide 13 and our third focus area, creating value. This encompasses our growth strategy, it encompasses operational efficiency and it encompasses capital management. On the growth side, we have brought clarity to our strategy. Our focus is to be a partner of choice in select markets where we have a competitive advantage. This approach will be underpinned by being proactive and anticipating the needs of our customers; partnering with them, pursuing unsolicited proposals and delivering bundled energy solutions and we're making the investment necessary to achieve this. To Slide 14. Our strategy to be the partner of choice will complement the momentum we're already seeing on our existing organic pipeline. We're making good progress with our projects across Australia with $465 million invested through the second half -- through the half across our select markets. We haven't been immune from the escalation of materials cost, supply chain pressures or impacts from weather; but most of this has been shielded and successfully shielded by the way we procure our materials and contractors. We commissioned our Gruyere Microgrid during the half and it's performing very well. Our Mica Creek Solar Farm is powering ahead and we've got now more than 90% of construction complete. The expansion of our pipeline routes to Southern markets is well underway and on track to help meet peak gas demand this winter. Pleasingly, this was recognized by the ACCC who recently acknowledged that there is now likely to be sufficient capacity on key pipelines to transport gas to meet the projected supply shortfalls in the southern states in 2023. On top of this, we've also acquired Basslink further enhancing our electricity transmission capability and giving us exposure to new energy markets. We can now support our customers with subsea cable expertise and we have extended our market reach into Tasmania. In total, we invested around $1.3 billion during the period in a mix of organic growth and M&A projects that we're confident will create long-term value for our investors, customers and the community. To Slide 15. We have a strong business with strong foundations and a great future, but we also need to continue to invest in our business and in our people. A great example of this is the expansion of our electricity transmission business. We can now demonstrate that we have the skills, capability and experience that's necessary to support customers such as the New South Wales government with their renewable energy zone ambitions. With APA being selected as one of the shortlisted participants in the Central-West Orana initiative, that's clear evidence of this. Our new national state-of-the-art Integrated Operations Center or IOC as we call it, which you can see on the Slide 16 in front of you, is a great example of how these investments in our business will strengthen our foundations and create value over the long term. Our new IOC was opened in November last year. We can now support our customers and market operators from 1 central location. It's a truly impressive capability that we've developed. And let me emphasize once again, it's investments like this that will ensure APA can support our stakeholders to deliver safe, reliable and affordable energy solutions and enable APA to be a partner of choice as Australia's energy system transitions. With that, I'll hand you over to Kynwynn to talk through our financial performance.

Thanks, Adam, and good morning, everyone. It is my pleasure to address you as APA's Acting Chief Financial Officer. To echo Adam, we're pleased with our financial performance for the first half of FY '23. I'll jump straight into today's results starting with the slide on Page 18, the P&L. We've delivered another solid financial performance with revenue up 5% and EBITDA up 2.5%. Our nonoperating items are a positive $12 million in total with the 2 main callouts being Basslink with interest income, the revaluation of the debt and integration costs taken below the line, partly offset by hedging adjustments and our technology transformation projects. These details are shown in the appendix. Depreciation and amortization are lower as this half normalizes for the higher rate we saw in the first half of FY '22. Net interest expense is lower as we benefited from higher deposit base. Tax expense is higher on our higher earnings base. Free cash flow is down 6%, but it is up 2% if we exclude the impact of a $41 million receipt that was paid in early January. I'll come back to this shortly. But as Adam said in his remarks earlier, I want you to take away the number that it's 2% higher. Our distribution is in line with our guidance at $0.26 per security, up 4%, equating to a payout ratio of 63.3%. I'm proud to say this is a continuation of almost 19 years of growth in distributions for our security holders. And there is no doubt our balance sheet is robust and we are in a strong position with cash and undrawn facilities of $2.3 billion. Moving now on to the next slide where I will take you through the revenue in more detail. Segment revenue is up 5%. Excluding Orbost, it's up 7%. You can see we have clearly benefited from the majority of our tariffs being linked to inflation. We have also had some operational improvements in the period. About half of the $20 million you will see there under operating revenue is from our East Coast assets performing well in the period. The other half is from the nonrecurrence of an operating item in the West Coast in the prior period. So overall, it's a solid result and what you would expect of us. We are a highly contracted energy infrastructure business with inflation-linked revenues. If we now look at our costs on the next slide, Slide 20. The biggest item here is our corporate costs, which have increased $16 million. You will recall at our Investor Day in May and our results in August last year, we were explicit that our cost base would increase as we invested in our business to ensure a sustainable future and this is what you are seeing. You are seeing targeted and financially disciplined investment in our people to further build out our capabilities. This is key to ensuring we create value for our customers, communities and investors as a partner of choice to deliver infrastructure solutions. While we will remain financially disciplined, we're making these significant investments now to ensure our business will grow sustainably over the longer term. This includes electricity transmission, renewables, power generation, sustainability and community technology. It is also really important to acknowledge the hard work of our teams who continue to drive operational efficiency improvements. If I could make a specific call out that operating costs have only increased $9 million despite a challenging period with floods and an inflationary environment. As Adam said in his earlier remarks, this goes to the heart of our operational excellence. Moving to Slide 21, which shows EBITDA by segment. I'll call out a few highlights. On the East Coast, EBITDA is up 5% excluding Orbost. In addition to our tariffs befitting from inflation, we saw good performance from a number of our assets, including the South West Queensland Pipeline and Roma to Brisbane pipeline with new contracts and a colder winter. It also captures our response to the Young-Lithgow repair, which Adam touched on earlier, highlighting our focus on safety and support for vulnerable customers. The West Coast continues to perform well, up 11% with around half of this increase in inflation linked benefits and the other half from an operating provision in the previous period. The Wallumbilla Gladstone Pipeline is pretty straightforward with a 7% increase due to the contract being inflation linked with a small FX offset attributable to the foreign exchange contracts we extended this time last year. Our electricity generation and transmission, which includes Basslink and our generation assets both firming and renewables, is up 13% with an initial $8 million contribution from Basslink. Excluding Basslink, EBITDA is up 5%. Moving on to cash flow on the next slide, Slide 22. As I mentioned earlier, free cash flow is down 6%, but the number I want you to take away is that it's 2% higher. You can see in this waterfall chart the largest movement is a $41 million increase in working capital with this payment falling into early January as a result of the 31st of December falling on a Saturday. There is also a $24 million movement in working capital from a handful of smaller items. We have not separated these out, but the dynamic is similar. Without this $41 million, our free cash flow increased 2%, broadly in line with EBITDA and inclusive of the benefit we continue to receive from the federal government's accelerated depreciation allowance for capital projects. I would also draw your attention to the net interest line, which is only $1 million higher than the first half of FY '22 as we continue to benefit from the liability management exercise we executed in March 2021 with all our drawn debt fully hedged or fixed. Turning now to our balance sheet on Slide 23. This slide clearly demonstrates the strong foundations of our business and I will make just 2 points. First, our balance sheet is strong with our average cost of debt at 4.4% and $2.3 billion of cash and undrawn facilities to fund growth and pursue the opportunities in front of us. Second, it highlights that we continue to have an organic pipeline of CapEx opportunities still in excess of $1.4 billion. Moving on to Slide 24. So to conclude and before I hand back to Adam, I want to summarize how we think about our disciplined capital allocation. First and foremost, we must make sure our people are safe and our assets are safe with our stay in business CapEx. We're focused on continuing to improve our technology, protecting our assets and delivering on our net 0 commitments. We have risk-adjusted hurdle rates for both M&A and organic growth to ensure we create long-term value for our securityholders. We know our distributions are important to our securityholders and we always look to ensure we have an appropriate balance between growing our distribution and efficient funding of our growth. And finally, we're continuing to ensure we have the options available to us for capital management so that we can act when we see an opportunity to create value. I look forward to your questions later. I now hand you back to Adam to take you through the energy market dynamics.

Thank you, Kynwynn. And as Kynwynn just said, I'd like to briefly highlight some of the dynamics we're seeing in the energy market at the moment before we take some questions from the audience. So I'll get back on to Slide 26 and what's important here is that the success of the energy industry going forward is clearly going to be judged by our nation's ability to deliver reliable and affordable energy for our community, industry as the system continues to lower emissions. And over the last year, we've seen what happens when one of these falls out of balance. Make no mistake, investment in renewable power generation is critical and it's actually got to continue to accelerate if we're going to achieve our nation's net 0 ambitions. At APA, we're playing our part. We're developing Australia's largest offgrid solar farm in Mount Isa. We've acquired Basslink and we're supporting government to build out the electricity transmission connections required to support these new generators. And through the transition, we know that gas will continue to play a central role in ensuring our energy system remains reliable and affordable as we transition to more and more renewables. More broadly though, Australia needs to ensure that the right policies and regulatory frameworks are in place to ensure the energy transition is orderly and to promote the necessary investment required to achieve our nation's ambitions. Moving to Slide 27. As Australia's reliance on coal is winding down, we're seeing renewables generation stepping up as it should be. but renewables unfortunately can't do all the heavy lifting. Right now coal still represents 2/3 of the national electricity market's energy mix. AEMO expects about 60% of the current coal-fired capacity to be withdrawn by 2030. That's around 14 gigawatts of capacity that will not be available within 7 years. The challenge to replace 14 gigawatts of capacity by 2030 is staggering and let me try to paint a picture of this challenge. Snowy 2.0 and the Battery of the Nation are 2 of Australia's largest renewable projects. But when they eventually come online, they'll only deliver a fraction of what's needed to replace coal and don't get me wrong, we need these projects. Technologies such as batteries are no doubt required and have a role to play as well. But if you take for example the Victorian Big Battery, one of the largest in the world, it's likely to only provide enough power for around 1 million Victorian homes for around 30 minutes. Yes, technology is improving at pace as it should be, but it's well short of what's needed to ensure our energy system is secure and reliable when the sun doesn't shine or when the wind doesn't blow. And that's why renewable energy coupled with firm gas is essential. On to Slide 28. We've seen the imports of gas play out in South Australia, we've seen it play out in Western Australia and we've seen it play out in other progressive regions of the world. In the U.K.: renewables make up about 36% of the energy market which is impressive, gas makes up about 40%. In the Netherlands: renewables make up 33%, gas makes up 46%. But if we focus back on Australia right now when you take South Australia out of the national electricity market, it runs on 24% renewables, but just 4% gas and 67% coal. As coal is withdrawn across the [ NEM ] at ever-increasing rates, gas will be essential to ensure grid stability and support the growth of renewables. The key to achieving this is ensuring that there's appropriate supply of gas in the market and importantly, domestic supply of gas in the market. Let's look at Slide 29 as an example. The U.K. is an example of what happens when ambition gets ahead of reality and appropriate domestic supply isn't maintained. While the Russian and Ukraine conflict has no doubt materially impacted energy prices in the U.K., prices were already on the rise well before the conflict began. Before the Ukraine conflict in calendar 2021, the U.K. gas production reduced by 17% while at the same time, regenerable generation output actually fell 8% owing to poor weather conditions. With coal generation in the U.K. at an all-time low due to the retirements and domestic gas supply down, the U.K. had to increase its reliance on gas imports to keep the lights on and households warm. The results, a 189% increase in U.K. electricity prices over this period, again I underline before the Ukraine conflict, which then only made matters worse. Turning to Slide 30. This provides an important lesson for Australia. Reliability and affordability of energy is directly linked to domestic gas supply and we know that we need to keep energy costs, including gas affordable for both households and for industry. I think everyone recognizes the challenge involved when setting policies to ensure energy costs are kept low. It is not easy. But committing to domestic gas supply is arguably the single most important initiative we have at our disposal to deliver a smooth, effective and successful energy transition for Australians. At APA, we're doing everything we can to make sure that gas can get to where it's needed. We're investing ahead of demand. Our East Coast grid development is a clear example of this. But developing upstream gas resources and new gas suppliers must also be prioritized. My key message for you is this. The energy transition is not a game of picking energy source winners. We need an orderly transition if we're going to get this right for our communities and for industry. Coal is coming out. An investment in renewable power generation is critical and must continue to accelerate if we are to achieve our nation's net 0 ambitions. We need to connect the new generators to the users via new electricity transmission links, but it's also vital to bring to market new domestic gas supplies to complement renewables and fast track the energy transition. With that, I'd like to now hand it over to the moderator, who is going to help us with the questions from the audience.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Tom Allen at UBS.

You reported EBITDA growth across both the East Coast and West Coast networks. You called out that CPI tariff escalation was a key contributor. But I'm especially interested in the comments around improved operating activities and new contracts on the East Coast. So recognizing the government has price caps on uncontracted wholesale gas on the East Coast, can we hear whether APA will be a beneficiary of an uptick in demand for pipeline contracting arising from those caps?

Tom, thanks for the question. It's an interesting dynamic we're seeing and look, one that we think for the long term is not necessarily sustainable. I think you've got to think about it in 2 different ways in terms of the reaction of customers and the upstream players in the market because of what's happening from a policy and regulatory front, 2 parts. One is there's obviously -- and I'm not going to speak on behalf of any of our customers or individual customers in particular. But everyone knows that the upstream players are concerned about this, the uncertainty in particular, and we're hearing from them the pause that's going on in terms of their new investments to bring supply to market and you just heard me for the last 5 minutes talk about how critical that is. So that is something that needs to play out and again we all know what they're looking for. They're looking for certainty and clarity to ensure that when they make their investments, they know what returns they're generating for their own investors. The other part is just the day-to-day dynamics of the customer and 1 of the things that we're seeing this is not general across the entire portfolio, but we are seeing a lot of customers racing to try to secure supply. The 1 thing that we don't want and we know the demand is there. We know demand for gas is supplied in particular for the Southern markets. We know that we're bringing that supply to market with our investments in the East Coast grid. So it's now about making sure that you've got access to the market to be able to bring supply to the customers. And 1 of the things that we are seeing is our customers making sure that they're locking in that short-term supply. So that's the positive side of things. But again going back to my initial comment, what we need is that level of stability and certainty so that our customers can be making more longer-term views around the longer-term outlook of gas supply and demand.

Sounds like there's a positive short-term tailwind coming through at least. Just a couple of questions on your growth projects. The Northern Goldfields Interconnect in WA that took FID back in 2020 with less than 25% of the capacity contracted. Is that pipeline on track for first gas this year? Is it within the $460 million budget? And also can you share what percentage of the current pipeline capacity is contracted firm for first gas?

So again just to remind everyone, NGI is in WA and again that was one of those projects that we brought to market ahead of having all of the customer contracts secured. And again we have backed ourselves and we know that the WA market, in particular the resources sector is going to be buoyant and robust for decades to come given the needs of the globe around the products that are being produced in that area. So they're supporting our customers bringing energy to market so that the customers in that region can then have certainty. Again these companies need to have certainty of things like energy supply before they can go through their processes to raise the capital to bring their product to market. The delivery of the construction project is going well. We have not been immune, as I said before, across all of our portfolio; but we haven't been immune to supply shortages. to cost escalations, to weather impacts; but we have been able to contain it very well on that project. So nothing material that would concern you or that has concerned us. And as it relates to the contracting, again the team at APA have done a phenomenal job of working very closely with our customers on this. But I think it's important to understand a couple of dynamics with these sorts of projects and in particular that area. So firstly, it's not any 1 or any 2 big customers coming along that just take out the full supply of that product. It's about serving a community and a community of largely resources businesses, some existing and well-established and some that are new with very impressive tenements, but they need to get their businesses operating. So we're working with all of our customers to provide that support and many number of them are signing up and a number of them are waiting until there is exact clarity on when our opening date is. We're still on track to deliver that in the fourth quarter of this financial year so around the middle of the year. But they just want more certainty on exactly when we are bringing that to market and because there's capacity in the asset, they have the luxury of being able to take the time to be able to do that. The other thing that we need to be aware of and we've had this in other assets that have had a similar portfolio is that the ramp-up of these type of assets is just slower than you would have had if it was a pipeline that was contracted to just 1 or 2 customers that was ready to go once you had commissioned it. So the ramp-up should be seen as one that takes a longer time just given the nature of the customer profile. Some of our customers have not got their projects off the ground yet and that may take 12 or 18 months to occur. But again the takeaway is that we're confident about the demand. We're certainly very, very confident about the longer-term demand. The thing that we just need to manage, which was already in our forecast when we developed this project, is just the timing of the ramp-up and it may be a bit slower than what you've been accustomed to in the past.

All right. We're hearing that you're not going to commit today to where the firm contracting is, but we're hearing loud and clear that it might be a little slower than you expected a few years ago. A final question on growth. Just looking for some color on the indicative time frame you expect to hear the outcome of your bid for the electricity transmission work in the New South Wales, Central West Orana Renewable Energy Zone. And then if you were unsuccessful in that process, can you just talk to the pipeline of opportunities to bid for similar reservoir along the Eastern Seaboard and the indicative CapEx scope for those types of opportunities?

And look, firstly, we're obviously bound by confidentiality and things like that that we can't get into the specifics of the project so I cannot give you the timing of when we would expect to hear an outcome. What is public, what is well known is that we're 1 of the shortlisted players to be able to progress through the stage that we're in now with the New South Wales government on the Central West Orana REZ. So that is I think a very, very strong signal that the New South Wales government has got faith that we have got the capability and the right to play in this space. They wouldn't have taken us through all of this work if they didn't think we had the capability in that space. We already, as you know, own and operate interconnectors across the country. We bought Basslink during the period, which further strengthens our capability in that area. And as I called out and as Kynwynn called out, we've been very deliberate in making sure that we are investing upfront in the capability to ensure that we can give our customers, and in this case it's the New South Wales government, and the community more broadly with the confidence that we've got the capability to be able to do that. If we're successful with the project, then we'll continue to invest in that business and we'll be working obviously very closely with the government and with the market operators, the regulators to progress through that. And we have every confidence that if we're fortunate to be the successful player in that that we can do that and move that at speed. The at-speed comment I guess is the pertinent one because if you play out the scenario or the question that you just asked around what happens if we don't win. When you look at the pipeline of opportunities, when you look at what is required across the nation to build out electricity transmission, it is significant. We know we've got the capability. We are 1 of the few operators in this space. One can think that it's highly competitive and it is very competitive amongst the players in this space, but we are 1 of the few in the space. We are very proudly an Australian company, which I think is a differentiator, and I think the community will look positively on the fact that we're an Australian company delivering [ transmission ] infrastructure to market. But when you take -- I go back to coal is coming out there is no question, it's coming out of pace. It's coming out at pace not just because of climate change. It's coming out of pace because most of these coal-fired generators are old and they cost a lot of money to upkeep. So there's going to be decisions made around whether or not you keep investing in money when you've got an uncertain future or that you transition and either way, you need to do all of it and renewable power generation needs to come in at massive scale at massive pace. And we cannot lose sight of the fact that you can't build a wind farm or a solar farm somewhere. And Tom, I'm sure you know as well as anyone, the volume that's been built, you can't build it without connecting it to the end user and that's where electricity transmission is going to play. And we again are very confident about the long-term potential for us to play in that space because the demand is certainly going to be there.

The next question comes from Dale Koenders of Barrenjoey.

Just building on Tom's questions. Can you provide a bit more color as to what are the other key pieces to earnings over the next 12 months and maybe what was the impact from Young-Lithgow Pipeline that won't go again, Basslink $8 million for a couple of months? Is that the right run rate going forward corporate cost growth or is it more to come and anything else you can think of?

Yes. So I think that if I was in your shoes, I think a couple of the things you're going to be focused on is around the cost base and we've had a lot of questions on that for a couple of years now as we've been very clear about our ambition to grow in Australia's energy transition and build our capability. And I think you've got to recognize and again we've been talking about this for a long time; Investor Days, presentations to the market; that we need to ensure that we are internally confident and also that the community can be confident that we've got the right capability. Capability can be defined as things like systems and processes and platforms and IOCs and as well as people that we've got the right capability to be able to deliver the infrastructure solutions that the community needs and that our customers need. We are leaning into it. We are not shying away from it. I'm sure there'll be a couple of cynics out there about how we're going about it. But we know and I personally know that you need to make those investments to build the capability to be able to be successful and create sustainable long-term growth and we're leaning into it. We're doing it in a very disciplined way. So please don't misinterpret what I'm saying. We're very focused on how we go about it. We're pacing it appropriately. We're driving operational efficiency through the rest of our business. Kynwynn again called out when you look at the base business. And again I'd like to thank the operations team as well for continually being focused on operational efficiency. But we need to make the investments in the areas that we need to make the investment. So we're doing that. So that's I guess the OpEx side of things. So short answer to your question is we will continue to invest. But there becomes a point in the not-too-distant future where you build scale and you don't need to do that anymore and you can drive efficiency from the systems and processes that you're implementing. So again it's getting the balance right. And the second one you raised, which is the second thing that I would raise if I was in your shoes is just around the CapEx. And again we've been very transparent about that at least directionally anyway over the last period of time about the fact that we need to not only invest in organic growth which is great, but also in some of those foundational platforms. So again you can't build an Integrated Operating Center or IOC the way that we've done and we'd love to get you to our facility so that you can see the capability that we've built. You've got to spend the capital to do that. We have a real competitive advantage going back to Tom's question on things like electricity transmission not only being an Australian company, but we know that we can attract talent as a public company. And as an Australian company, we are able to attract talent and we've got to make sure that we accommodate them in the right places. We need to know that we need to be competitive in the way that we can attract and retain talent. We need to invest in their development and we need to ensure that we've got the right culture and behaviors in place to be able to make sure that we're an employer of choice. So we are investing in technology, we're investing in ERPs and those sorts of things not just because we want to, but because we know it's the right thing for our communities, for our customers, for our investors in particular over the long term.

So I guess my conclusion then is base earnings are flat in the absence of inflation, but APA is continuing to invest money to make money in people and systems and projects?

Dale, I can't give guidance on that. So the guidance I can give is around our distribution profile. But what I can say is, again, we've got a really solid foundation. We've got inflation-linked revenues. We're investing in capability that's not going to continue forever in terms of the step-up that we're making, and that will reset at the appropriate time. And we very alive to the fact that our investors also like a nice, stable distribution or nice stable distribution growth year-on-year and our job is to get the balance right.

The next question comes from Peter Wilson at Credit Suisse.

If I could ask a question on the 2025 debt refinancing. So assuming you in chunks, that I understand it was associated with the Wallumbilla Gas Pipeline acquisition. So I think there's USD 1.1 billion of debt associated with that maturing in 2025. Last time we had the situation in 2019, that debt was refinanced and the term extended, but I imagine that option might be off the table this time given that, that asset is particularly halfway through its effective financial life. So just wondering what you intend to do with that debt? Do you intend to reduce APA's gross debt once you repay that or do you intend to effectively leverage up your other assets to repay that?

Peter, it's Kynwynn here. Thanks for your question. So in terms of how we think about our debt book, I think the first important point to make is it's a strong balance sheet, make sure that we've got that interest rate risk as locked away. So that continuation of ensuring that we've got that fixed rate exposure. In terms of the actual refi that's coming up in '25, we are looking at that now, obviously. And we'll look at a number of options for us. We will work through that, recognizing that it's associated with the WGP, but that we wrap it into our overall portfolio and think about the portfolio as a whole. We want to make sure that we've got options so that we can continue to invest and grow our business, but we will do that ensuring that we've got investment credit ratings and we'll always have them at the forefront of our minds when we're thinking about it.

Got it. I mean given that asset, does, I guess, over only 12 to 13 years to run, do you agree that it is appropriate to start amortizing the debt associated with that?

We're well alive to the profile of it, and that's one of the considerations that we are looking at as we think about our portfolio and our capital management strategy, which we look at all the time. It's not that we do it particularly now that we've got a particular tranche of debt coming up. It's something that we're always looking at, always looking to optimize to ensure we put ourselves in the best position that we can so that we've got the options to continue to grow our business in a sustainable and value-accretive way.

Okay. Got it. And Adam, one for you on strategy. On Slide 13, you outlined your focus markets, future energy, I assume that Aurecon is renewable fuels. So just thinking about the amount of capital that you might deploy into that over the medium term. I know you're a partner in the Central Queensland hydrogen project, which I believe the intention was to enter FEED in 2023. So maybe a overall comment on hydrogen, how much kind of capital you intend to commit there and then an update on that Central Queensland project?

Yes. Thank you, Peter. Look, it's the hydrogen one is a really interesting one because -- and we're obviously leaning into it, and we're making investments and we'll continue to make investments in that space; a, because we know we've got capability, your transporting molecules, very good at transporting molecules. So we know that we've got a role to play in the transition. And I think the fact that we've been able to partner up with such credible partners in things like the Central Queensland hydrogen project is testament to the role that we can play there. For us, it's about trying to get the balance right. And we're alive to the fact that hydrogen is a viable and should be technologically viable alternative and clean alternative fuel source over the longer term. The real challenge is the near term and how that works both economically and practically with certain industries would like to be at, in particular, some of the heavy industry sectors would love to be able to convert over to hydrogen, but we all know, and I know very well that there's a long way to go before that plays out. So we want to continue to be involved in those projects. We will invest in those projects when there is demand for that from a customer perspective. And when I say invest, I admit it at a heavy scale. And there were some interesting -- and Central Queensland Hydro project is particularly interesting one, potentially because of the offtake demand and the offtake arrangements that could be in place. So it's about getting the balance right, but I certainly am not coming out and saying we're doubling down and we're going to go crazy on hydrogen projects at the moment. That's not the intent. It's just making sure that we've got that appropriate balance between being across it to support our customers, investing at the right pace to ensure that we can support our customers operationally and technically and commercially at the appropriate time. And again, being at the table so that when they do commercialize, we can support our customers with that.

The next question comes from Gordon Ramsay at RBC Capital.

I've got some questions just on your key business operations. I just want to start with energy infrastructure. It looks like your higher inflation link revenue in Basslink earnings were key drivers here, kind of 8% growth in revenue. I guess I'm just trying to get a feel for how repeatable that is going forward, assuming the half year period, the Basslink contribution was in those numbers. Can we look at a similar level in the second half of the year or into FY '24?

You mean specifically for Basslink Gordon?

No, no. Overall, just the electricity generation transmission contribution, the revenue contribution was up 8% for energy infrastructure.

Yes. So let me start with inflation. So if you think about how our contracts are structured. So we are able to basically have inflation on the vast majority of our contracts. So that is -- it takes the inflation rate that you see, and you can apply that to the vast majority of our revenue lines. Now some of them are annual. Some of them are quarterly, and that will flow through the business. So that sort of takes care of that one. Outside of that, then you're looking at the contracting position. And as you are probably aware, we don't provide the day-to-day details there where we've got new contracts coming on and falling off. But the net impact from this period is some fell off and some more came on and it ended up being quite a good outcome. And you know our team worked very, very hard to make sure that the relationship that we have with our customers is a good one, and they can continue to have that dialogue with them and make sure our assets are available and they're able to contract with then. The Wallumbilla Gladstone Pipeline, that's pretty straightforward. So the inflation coming through for there is a 7% and a bit percent that starts from 1 Jan. So that one should be able to help you think about that. If I look at a few of the others, the asset management business is down on the PCP. And that's a reflection of a chunk of work that we've done over the last little while that we're probably back to a more normalized level there. I'll pull out the energy investments, even though it's a small contribution, the point to make there is we've had a change in -- so that's coming from SEA Gas. We've had a change in one of our contracts there where they've had a fixed and a variable component. They've just moved to a variable component. And so when you're thinking about that one, I'd be thinking about just a variable component going forward. And Adam's talk to corporate costs, we are going to continue to invest in our corporate costs.

If I can just add, Gordon, probably just 2 things. Basslink, we're really happy with. So again, it's a business that, as you know, is contracted, we're on a pathway to regulation. The contract has been set up to somewhat mirror our expectations around -- around regulation, but that's performing well. The team has done a great job at integrating that. We've got a few more things to integrate. But we've moved very quickly. We're making some investments, as I mentioned earlier, which I know our customers being delighted by, and we're doing a great job in terms of reliability. The other one in you asked specifically about electricity generation. The other -- generally, we're doing quite well there. I think an example of that is Diamantina up in -- it's had a really, really good half. And a lot of that is operational performance. And again, we will always call out our operations team and had talks for the team up there for managing and operating that asset so well, as they always do. But during the period, performance has been outstanding. And we've had a few tailwinds with some customer demand, which may not continue. These assets go up and down over time. So we've had a very, very good half in that electricity transmission -- sorry, electricity generation part of our business.

Just one other question for me. On asset management. You had a change in project mix with higher cost plus margin projects and lower customer contribution projects. Can we look at that kind of mix going forward? Or is that somewhat variable. And what I'm getting at is it drove higher revenue but lower EBITDA. And I'm just trying to kind of look at that going forward.

Yes. So the patterns that you're seeing that's coming through into the first half, that's the basis that you should look at.

Our next question comes from Rob Koh at MS.

I just wanted to drill a little bit more into how I should be thinking about the run rate on the Basslink earnings, is the $7.7 million EBITDA effective from 20th of October. And is that a run rate to think about? Or should we also be factoring in what was previously interest income in that?

Yes. So we've taken the interest income below the line, and you'll be able to see that there in the split-out of the nonoperating items log. You are right on the date. So that that 20th of October. If you take that range and then annualize it for the second half, you will get a number. I'd just encourage you to be aware that we are doing some tweaks and a bit of work on the Basslink transmission -- or Basslink project all up as we integrate it into our business. So we were doing it. The team is doing a great job there to bring it into our business. And that is work that's being undertaken right now.

Great. That's very helpful. And then maybe a slightly more bigger picture question because you're obviously very focused on continuity and reliability of gas supply. One of your bigger clients have expressed a view that the one potential solution for southern market shortfall should that happen is through your East Coast Grid, but then the constraint becomes storage. So do you have a view on storage investment in the southern markets and whether you'd move ahead of demand on that particular front?

Yes, it's a really good question, Mr. Koh. And you didn't call me Mr. Watson, I'm a bit nervous about that. No, it's -- look, it's an interesting one. And I always start the answer to these questions is you need all of it to make it work effectively, but you've got to be very careful about which priorities you choose to ensure that you get that balance right around security, reliability, affordability and lower emissions. I think the storage has got a very important role to play. We saw our Mondarra asset in the Northwest play an important role just a few weeks ago. And we can see that is critical. I think the challenging thing is whether or not things like storage are the right solution for long-term supply/demand imbalances. So typically very good for short term, but long term. And you've seen that play out in Europe at the moment where there's a lot of concern about whether or not the storage, which is somewhat, say today, at least cushion the impact in Europe during their winter, the concern is whether or not it's going to be enough going forward. And I keep bringing it back to what is the #1 thing we can do to ensure that we provide the most secure, most reliable, most affordable outcome in the energy transition as it relates to gas, it's about bringing supply to market. And we know that there's -- it's going to be hard to do that in Victoria. So you've got to look to the northern states. And there's an abundance of supply. It's just about how do we encourage the investment to bring it to market.

Yes. Sorry, I was going to call you that. I was a bit worried I was going to call you Mr. Berman because I've got a bit on today. I just want to double check. The escalation in the Wallumbilla Gladstone pipeline for this calendar year. Is that the 7% that you're referring to? Or are you able to share what that print is?

Yes, its 7.5%. Starting 1 Jan, WGP revenue goes up 7.5%.

The next question is from Ian Myles of Macquarie.

Just -- can you give us some examples of your bundle energy solutions that you've been for or won during the first half of the year?

Yes. Thanks, Ian. So there has been a number of bids, and I can't get into specifics because; a, you would expect to get it signed NDAs and all those sorts of things. But to paint a picture, you -- was an example of a -- we call it a micro group, but one where we bundled a solution as it relates to affirming renewable power generation and how you bring that together, battery storage. We've obviously made strong progress during the period in Meinshausen, supporting our customers there. So we're running a solution where we can effectively provide the gas firming to support the new Mica Creek solar farm. We see a lot of opportunities in the remote areas where we know that our customers are decarbonizing. You can look at all the major resources companies in Australia, and they all have net 0 commitments and they've all got their own requirements and ambitions to take themselves off coal or diesel or wherever it may be. And I guess that if we use that as the example, which is where we are spending most of our time in, it's -- our customers don't necessarily want to have to deal with 5 different players. So they don't want to have to deal with somebody who's going to provide the electricity -- so the renewable power generation and then have to do with somebody separate who's going to connect that wire electricity transmission and then have somebody separate who they're going to enter into a gas firming arrangement. And then potentially somebody different who might do a bit of battery storage or whatever it may be. The thing that we know we can do is we can provide all of that and we can bundle that service together. They don't misinterpret the customer who is going to push hard around making sure it's affordable and all those sorts of things. But we actually have a fairly unique competitive advantage in being able to bring that bundled solution together, knowing that we already have the infrastructure in many of those regions,0 now that we already have the people and the relationships. So it's those sorts of projects in. These are not -- they're not little projects. So they're not ones that you just announced something every other week, like you can do if we were just solely focused on building small solar farms. The bundled solutions are fairly big projects. You're making fairly good commitments with the customer, you're signing long-term contracts typically. So we feel confident about them. We didn't announce anything new necessarily during the period of scale, but I can let you know that we're doing a lot of work with our customers in that space and are feeling confident about that.

Okay. That's great. On the East Coast Grid, have we seen the end of contract repricing where people are reducing off-peak contracting and maybe increasing peak contracting, but the net outcome is you having some revenue pressure. Have we gone through that cycle now and that we're now back to inflation on the growth profile?

Look, it's certainly. Well, firstly, our customers are always ensuring that they get the best value and the best service out of us. And it's one of the things I don't think is well appreciated more widely. And we talked with government, for example, about this all the time that our customers are actually paying for service. The majority of our assets are not things where anyone can tap into it. And you just -- I'm talking about gas transmission now and where you regularize them because everyone is getting the same service. The very nature of our assets and the very nature of our gas transmission business is that the vast majority of our customers want service. They want to be able to have the gas when and where they need it. And they want to be able to flow it from point to point or different locations based on their own demand, which changes all the time. And it's a really important thing to understand. There is no question over the last few years that the contracting has become shorter in terms of tenure in terms of length. And that's again just because the customers -- and we're leaning into this, by the way, the customers want more flexibility in terms of the way that they procure their services because they need it because their business is becoming more variable as well. So we are leaning into that, and we're supporting our customers with that. Do not think for a second, Ian, that they don't get the best price out of us. We're dealing with very sophisticated customers. And we -- and we wouldn't expect anything different. I think, though, that if you look at the period, and that's one period in a row, so it's not -- I wouldn't call it real momentum yet, but the team has done a fantastic job at making sure that we can support our customers during what -- is what a fairly the volatile period at getting supply not only in the peak periods, but in the shoulder periods as well. And I think the shoulder periods are becoming more and more variable as well. And I think they are becoming more and more variable as well. So what we're seeing is also, I guess, the length or the week that the shoulder period becoming bigger as well.

And actually specifically to the capacity, Shell drew down a capacity on the MSP. Are we at a point that the MSP is actually fully contracted over winter now and that there's no more ability to sell volume?

Yes, we look -- Yes, the first thing we'd say is that we've got -- which is true -- we've got capacity across all of our assets. But one of the things, infrastructure. It's all about moving bottlenecks, right? So there's nothing more simple to infrastructure than that. But it doesn't matter what asset class you're in as you develop it, all you're trying to do is move the bottleneck to somewhere else. And one of the things that we work with our customers on is how do we shape our contracts. So that it's fair and equitable for everyone and making sure that they've got what they need when they need it and doing things like spreading the shoulders. So there is no question that some of the assets are becoming more full in the peak periods in the winter periods and others have got a fair bit of capacity, which effectively access storage. Going back to Rob's question around storage, again, I think a lot of people forget the fact that our pipelines actually act importantly as storage vessels.

So that sort of lends itself to the next question. We've got long foot planning to shut the one of its gas trains, that's down to 2 trains, which I think 3 days per day out of Victoria next year. Are we getting to a point that the shutdown or the reduction of Victorian capacity is so fast that the pipes can't respond to import tunnel, which has just have to become a necessity?

Again, from a pipeline perspective, we haven't been the constraint. It's interesting if there was more supply coming into the southern markets from the southern markets, then that is something that you would have to look at. I think the hard thing for an investor to do is just the uncertainty, like it's pretty hard to make a big investment in an area where there is great uncertainty about what the future looks like. We're not building assets that you get a return on in 3 years' time. You're getting the assets that you get returns on over a decade or whatever it may be. So you've got to have a level of certainty around that. It keeps coming back to the importance of domestic supply. And when you -- we all know, and then you follow this is quietly as anyone I know. We all know the supply we've got available to us in the northern markets. We know that we've got the capacity to hold that down into the southern markets. It's about bringing that to market, which we know is going to be the most secure, reliable and affordable outcome for consumers and industry. And I think we've -- it's not ironic that import terminals, LNG import terminals and everything have gone quiet because we know that they never really made sense in the first place. So -- and we're seeing that play out when you're relying and dependent on imports. And again, hopefully, I hit the mark when we showed you those graphs about what happened in the U.K. when you're dependent on imports. So again, it's a very important thing that we sit back and we are sensible about this. And in our minds, that since start, begins and ends by ensuring we've got appropriate domestic gas supply in the market.

Okay. And then finally, just on the foundation CapEx. How much is that going to actually turn out to be over the next 3 to 4 years, is it sort of a new line you've broken out to call it foundation CapEx?

Yes. We want to call it out for a couple of reasons. And there's things like -- to get a little technical you're aware of the accounting standard changes, which means our SaaS or our cloud-based technology projects are now going through the P&L. And we're trying to help investors as best we can and trying to help UN and the sell-side community with the transparency around that. So you get an understanding of the underlying business. But we've spoken about it for a while and again, just underline, and you can guess how much it's going to cost. But I guess in terms of what are some of the things that we're doing at the moment, in terms of the meek things, in addition to just making sure that we've got the foundations right around capability and so forth. One is our ARP and we're motoring ahead on that. We need to make sure that our revenue systems and our billing systems are fit for purpose and are appropriate. So we're looking at investments there. We're looking at things, again, the IIC, and that's been incredibly impressive, and we've had ministers and we've had customers and we've had so many people look at that, really important investment. And then just small things with big things, Ian, our premises, we're just at that inflection point in our maturity. And again, the organization has been a really strong success story and leaders of the past did a fantastic job to get us to where we got to, and it was entirely appropriate. And I don't think you would do it any different. But we got -- we are at that natural inflection point now where we need to sort of go to that next phase and make investments again so we can set ourselves up for the next phase of growth, which we feel really, really positive about.

The next question comes from Nathan Lead of Morgan Financial.

Just a couple of questions from me. So first up, just a bit of detail, I suppose, in terms of revenue quality, average contract length. It used to be around about 11 years. Where is it sitting at the moment?

Nathan, we don't provide that number to the market. So historically we did, and it included the WGP. But I think you should focus on the comments that Adam made earlier about how we're going about our contracting. And yes, it has shortened and it's ongoing discussions with our customers. So we're not specifically going to provide you with a number, but you just need to think about the conditions that we've been talking about, strip out the WGP in what it is. And I'll just leave it there.

Yes. That's shorting. Okay. Second question for me, quite a big step-up in your liquidity position, I think it's up by 28% or so. I'm just wondering why that is? Obviously, you've got a very strong cash flow generation model, internal funding model effectively is obviously a cost of that liquidity. I just wanted to just talk through the strategy there?

Sure. Yes. So during the year we went to the market, and we were -- we put in place a facility so that we had that capital available if and when we needed it. And if I can kind of link that into talking about the capital allocation framework, it very much goes into that fifth pillar, if you like, making sure that we've got the flexibility that we want so that we can move quickly if we see an opportunity to create value. So yes, we went to the market and had the discussions around liquidity. There was a lot of interest, which is great. And so we've got that sitting now. And we will hopefully come up with something that we all get excited about.

Okay. And just third question for me is the $1.4 billion growth CapEx pipeline, can we just talk about just in terms of when the incremental earnings from that are likely to come online? I mean, obviously, you've got the regulatory side of things with the Victoria network that's come through in the access arrangement. We've talked through the NGI when that's likely to come on. Just talking through just timing of East Coast grid expansion and other items within that $1.4 billion.

Yes. Look, it's a bit of a mixed bag, Nathan. So, Andrew just called out a couple of the media one. So NGI, I think I've already explained, we've got things like Mica Creek that will come online later in the year. You've got the East Coast grid. And again, I think you've got to take yourself back to Ian's questions before around how that East Coast grid works. So it's not as though you spend $400 million and that you've got a full pipe 100% of the time. That expansion was principally around making sure that we were building appropriate capacity for the peak. So the profile of that might be a little bit different to what we've seen before. I think you've always got to come back to and Kynwynn just touched on it, but you touched on it, but you got to come back to looking at through the lens of an IRR perspective. So like all infrastructure assets, you look at these things and make sure that you generate a return that's above your hurdle rate, which in turn is above your cost of capital. Obviously, cash paybacks appear an important thing that we're investing in long-term assets, which may take time to wrap up as well. I think that the basic investment was a big chunk of capital during the period, and that's a good one because it's an existing asset, and that continues to perform really well. So for us, it's about getting that balance right between making the necessary organic investments to support our customers and acknowledging that, that may mean that it takes a period of time before you get a return known that the CapEx, the funding, and it goes back to Kynwynn's point around making sure we've got appropriate liquidity is making sure that we've got that to support our customers with the investments that they need and they want. And then just the timing of the cash flows over time.

Can I add -- maybe just throw in one more question, maybe pushing my back here. But just in terms of, I suppose, the returns versus hurdle rates. How are you thinking about that when you're looking at the transmission investment versus the gas infrastructure investments? Just I suppose in terms of risk profile and target returns?

Yes, it's a good question, Nathan. And you always push it just a little bit. No, the more questions are better, it's great. So the -- yes, I think you've answered my question in terms of the -- it's really down to the risk profile. I think one of the things that we're seeing through the energy transition, I bring it back to our strategy, and I've been -- we've been very deliberate in our words around being a partner of choice in bundled solutions. There's no accident that we've chosen those words. And the bundled solutions, I think, here is the important one because it's not -- I think the days have just been no investments. Going back to your first question around the ramp-up of the revenue profile, the days of building an asset where you had one of customers and you signed a 20-year contract, there was a basic regulatory framework. They'll exist from time to time, but it's not really where the packet is going. It means that you're taking on a level of risk, and I don't want to spook anyone, it's certainly a low level of risk relative to other markets, other industries. But -- in terms of sort of the infrastructure space, you are going a little bit further along the risk curve and you're partnering with your customers. And the reason they're partnering with you is because you're expert in this space and because you're willing to take on a bit of risk. And you've seen how well that can play out in other industries, other infrastructure industries where you can get yourself up the risk curve, you need to make sure you get financially rewarded for that. And generally, your customers are okay with that. In 10 years' time, when you've done a great job and you're generating higher returns, it might comp a bit of flat, but that's sort of part of the course that you do that. So the electricity transmission assets are going to be more along the sort of traditional regulatory return space, but adjusted for the amount of risk that you will take on, which will probably change on a project by project basis and knowing that we're all in a sort of a learning phase at the moment. When I say learning. And you only have to -- I spent a lot of time listening to AMO, given their importance in the market and their knowledge in the market and listen to AMO, you talk about -- you can model these things and engineers can stick it in a spreadsheet or an chart, but the actual practical delivery of these projects is going to be challenging, and that's why we're building the capability to make sure that we can support our customers with these complex projects and hopefully take on a little bit of risk and hopefully reward our investors with a good return. All right. So I think we are up with questions. So thank you, everyone for your questions. Thank you, moderator, for facilitating that. And if you can just give me 30 seconds to wrap up. And what I'd like to do is just take you to Slide 33. And there's 3 key takeaways from today's presentation. First, we've delivered another solid set of results. And again, a reminder, our distributions are in line with guidance. Our earnings continue to grow as we continue to invest for a sustainable future. And we've got a strong balance sheet. And secondly, we're confident about our strategy to be the partner of choice in the energy transition, delivering bundled solutions. And again, there was a fantastic conversation around that during the Q&A. And the third one is our relentless focus on our 3 priority areas. That is, again, take you back, our people, operational excellence and creating value. And it really is, I believe, building momentum in the organization. As I said in December, when I took over leading APA and a really strong privileged moment for me, but we're a really strong business with strong foundations and with a great future and one that's proud to be at the forefront of responsibly transitioning Australia's energy systems. So we feel very good about the future. And again, we really do appreciate everyone's support. And with that, I'll bring this to a close. And I'd just like to say thank you very much for your time.

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