Chief Executive of the Australian Pipeline Trust (APA), Mr Jim McDonald announced today that APA and its Joint Venture partners, the south west Queensland gas producers will construct a 1 MW compressor station on the Carpentaria Gas Pipeline as the first stage of expanding the capacity of the pipeline.

The Carpentaria Gas Pipeline was commissioned in March 1998 and transports gas from Ballera in south west Queensland to a number of major energy users in the Carpentaria Mineral Province (in north west Queensland) including Mount Isa Mines, WMC Fertilizers, BHP Cannington, the Century Mine and CS Energy’s Mica Creek Power Station.

The Carpentaria Gas Pipeline is owned 70% by APA, and 30% by the south west Queensland gas producers. The new compressor station will increase the capacity of the pipeline by approximately 10%. It is anticipated that the new work will be completed by the fourth quarter of 2002 in time to meet the peak summer demand on the pipeline.

Mr McDonald said, "The Carpentaria Gas Pipeline is approaching full capacity and existing users, such as MIM, have identified strong potential for future load growth. In addition, this new capacity will enable us to market a range of new transportation services to energy consumers in the Carpentaria Mineral province”.

APA has entered into an engineering, procurement, construction and management contract with Agility for the supply and installation of the compressor station.

“This project demonstrates APA’s continuing commitment to developing gas transportation infrastructure in Queensland to meet the needs of the market” Mr McDonald said.