Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Michael Fraser, and I'm the Chairman of APA Group Limited, which is the responsible entity for APA Group that comprises APA Infrastructure Trust and APA Investment Trust. On behalf of the board, I'd like to welcome you all to this annual meeting of each of those trusts. Given it's now past 10:30 A.M. and a quorum is present, I declare the 2024 annual meeting of APA security holders open. In the spirit of reconciliation, I'd like to begin today by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation as the traditional custodians of the land where this meeting is taking place. We pay our respects to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Today's annual meeting is a hybrid meeting, which means it's being held both in person and online.
So if you'll bear with me, before we move to the formal aspects of the meeting, I'd like to outline how security holders can participate in today's meeting. You can ask questions directly from the floor, via the webcast platform, or by phone. You'll also be able to vote on items of business. On a procedural note, I now declare voting for all items of business open on the webcast platform and for those attending in person. All items will be determined by poll, and voting will remain open for the duration of the meeting. Security holders watching online will be able to ask questions during the meeting via the webcast platform by clicking on the Ask a Question box on your screen.
Questions can be submitted online at any time, and I really encourage you to start submitting your questions now, and I'll address them at the relevant time in the meeting. Joining me today in Sydney, up the back, is Nicole Lyons, our General Manager for Brand and Reputation, and she'll read out the questions from security holders who are joining us online. We'll aim to answer as many of your questions as possible today, while ensuring we keep the meeting to a reasonable length. To that end, I'd ask security holders, please ask no more than two questions and to keep your questions as short as possible. It may be necessary for us to group similar questions or summarize longer questions.
A number of written questions have actually been received in advance of the meeting, and we have aimed to address many of these in the speeches, with any others to be dealt with when we come to the relevant item of business. To ask a question by phone, you'll need to press star one on your keypad. If you wish to ask a subsequent question, please press star one again to rejoin the queue. If you need assistance, please refer to the detailed instructions in the Virtual Meeting Online Guide that is available on the webcast platform. The webcast of today's meeting will be recorded and posted on APA's website as soon as possible after the meeting. So having dealt with the logistics, I'd now like to introduce my fellow directors.
Joining me in Sydney today is James Fazzino, the Chair of the Safety and Sustainability Committee. Rhoda Phillippo, Chair of the Risk Management Committee. Peter Wasow, Chair of the People and Remuneration Committee. Debbie Goodin, over there, Chair of the Audit and Finance Committee, a nd Nino Ficca, over there. A special welcome to our two new board members who are seeking your support for election today, Sam Lewis and David Lamont. Let me introduce you to some of APA's executive leadership team, who are sitting with me on stage this morning. First of all, Adam Watson, our CEO and Managing Director. And I don't need to introduce her because she just introduced herself, but for those online, Amanda Cheney, Group Executive, Legal and Governance, which includes responsibility for the company secretariat.
Also sitting in the front row and looking very sharp, as they usually do, is the rest of the APA executive leadership team. We're also joined by Jamie Gatt, who is our audit partner at Deloitte. There you are, Jamie, in the middle. Thank you for FY 2024. The slide up on the screen sets out the agenda for today's meeting. The notice of meeting has been made available to all security holders, and I'll take it as read. Adam and I will report on APA's performance for the 2024 financial year, as well as our strategy and outlook for the current year. We'll then move to the items of business set out in the notice of meeting. We've also set aside time at the conclusion of the formal business to answer any general questions. So turning now to my formal address.
FY 2024 was another year of solid financial and operational performance for APA. Over the past year, we have again played a critical role in helping deliver reliable, affordable, and lower emissions energy for our customers and Australia's energy consumers more broadly. Through the year, we achieved revenue, earnings, and distribution growth, and delivered new infrastructure to help meet Australia's energy needs. In FY 2024, we were pleased to record our 20th consecutive year of distribution growth for our investors. Our performance in the past year enabled the board to declare a final distribution of AUD 0.295, taking the FY 2024 distribution to AUD 0.56 per security, which was in line with guidance. This represented an increase of 1.8% on FY 2023, and has been delivered in parallel with ongoing investment in both our existing operations and establishing significant growth platforms for the business.
In this context, it's important to acknowledge the underperformance of the APA security price over the last twelve months. Security price movements are influenced by a range of factors, including, among other things, interest rates, industry and economic conditions, company performance, regulatory processes, et cetera. And while it's impossible to say with any certainty how much any particular factor has influenced the security price, clearly, higher interest rates, along with a reduction in the rate of growth of our distributions and issues related to our regulatory environment, have had an impact. That said, the board remains confident in the outlook for APA and our ability to continue delivering growth in returns for security holders. Over the past year, we've also undertaken a process of board renewal, and we've recently announced changes to the composition of the board.
Samantha Lewis and David Lamont have been appointed as non-executive directors, effective from one October this year. Both are standing for election at today's meeting, and you'll hear from each of them later in the meeting. Varya Davidson has also been appointed as a non-executive director, effective from March 1 next year, and she'll stand for election at next year's annual meeting. Varya is with us in the audience today, down the front here. Put your hand up, Varya . Thank you, and we really look forward to her joining us once she's clear of her other commitments. Debbie Goodin and Peter Wasow will be retiring from the board, Peter, at the conclusion of today's meeting, and Debbie at the end of February 2025.
Debbie, who will be standing for re-election today, has agreed to stay on until February to ensure a smooth transition of her role as Chair of the Audit and Finance Committee, and we thank her very much for that. On behalf of the board, I want to thank both Debbie and Peter for their valuable service to APA. Both of them have been very actively involved in helping APA navigate Australia's energy transition, and both have made very significant contributions to APA in their roles as committee chairs. So thank you, Debbie, and thank you, Peter. Turning now to our strategy. In FY 2024, we continued our focus on asset classes where we believe we have competitive advantages. These include contracted power generation, electricity transmission, gas transmission and storage, and the transportation of future fuels. For APA, the opportunities for growth within these chosen markets are significant.
As detailed in our FY 2024 results presentation, we've estimated the addressable market across contracted power generation, electricity transmission, and gas transmission alone is in excess of AUD 90 billion. Our focus is on profitably growing our share of those markets to deliver strong returns for our security holders and value for our customers and communities. There were several milestones achieved in FY 2024 that we believe will underpin long-term value creation. The highlight was the acquisition and successful integration of our new Pilbara business, which was completed last November. This acquisition has created a significant new growth platform for APA as we look to deliver lower emissions, contracted power generation, and electricity transmission infrastructure for major customers in the resource sector.
We thank all our security holders for their support of this transaction, and we look forward to updating you on milestones as we progress these growth projects in the Pilbara. Turning now to sustainability. Over the past three years, our sustainability roadmap has guided our actions across those areas that were identified as the most material for APA, including actions specific to our work with First Nations peoples, communities, and on climate. This year, the APA board has endorsed a refreshed sustainability roadmap covering our priorities for FY 2025 through to FY 2027. This will extend our focus into our priority areas and further embed sustainability across APA. Climate has been a significant part of our sustainability agenda, and APA is committed to actively supporting Australia's energy transition, consistent with the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
As I've said before, we want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. We've also committed to transparency in the disclosure of climate-related information, and to this end, I really do commend to you our recent 2024 Climate Report, along with our climate data book and our methodology disclosures. As you will see, we are very transparent about this information. It's encouraging to see that the central role of natural gas in ensuring energy security, supporting the accelerated development of renewables, and powering essential Australian industry is now widely acknowledged. This has been clearly reinforced by both the Federal Government's Future Gas Strategy and the Australian Energy Market Operator's 2024 Gas Statement of Opportunities. Our power generation, electricity transmission, and gas infrastructure operations will support the timely retirement of coal and other more carbon-intensive fuels as the nation transitions to a cleaner energy future.
In delivering these systemic benefits towards the overall reduction of Australia's carbon footprint, we do acknowledge that there's a potential impact on our own operational emissions, as our gas assets play their essential role in ensuring reliability of supply to firm up the intermittent nature of renewables and provide energy for essential Australian industries. But this is in the interest of the whole community and the energy transition itself. We saw this in FY 2024, where we delivered a 1.7% reduction in our gross emissions, compared to what would have been an 8% reduction if we hadn't grown our asset base by investing in much-needed infrastructure to ensure the reliability of energy supplies. This brings me to three resolutions we've received from a small number of security holders in relation to projects in the Beetaloo Basin that will be considered at today's meeting.
The resolutions have been prompted by a group called Market Forces and are put forward by security holders representing approximately 0.006% of the APA securities on issue. Based on the proxies received ahead of today's meeting, these resolutions are not supported by the vast majority of our security holders. However, APA respects the rights of our investors to put forward resolutions, and we welcome ongoing engagement with investors and other stakeholders that have an interest in our business. We've engaged with Market Forces on their views about the development of the Beetaloo Basin, and we'll continue to consult and engage with security holders and other stakeholders in the future. I'll also be making some further comments on these resolutions when we come to that item of business later in the meeting.
But let me say now that the Federal Government's Future Gas Strategy is very clear that new sources of natural gas will be required for Australia's transition to net zero, and we support that transition. Any potential new sources of gas, including the Beetaloo Basin, will be, and are already, subject to rigorous scientific environmental assessment and approval processes, as will any related pipeline infrastructure. We will respect those processes, as should everyone, and we will be open and transparent about the impact of any investment decisions on our emissions profile. In closing, on behalf of the board, I wanted to say thank you to all our employees for their ongoing contribution to the success of APA, and thank you also to our investors and other stakeholders for their continuing positive engagement. I'll now invite CEO and Managing Director Adam Watson to address the meeting. Adam?
Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. I also want to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional owners of the land in which I'm speaking today. I'm gonna cover two topics today. First, I'll talk to the work we've done to reset and progress our strategy. I'll then provide an overview of FY 2024 financial and operational performance, including an update on our regulatory environment. Over the past two years, we've reset our strategy with a clear ambition: to be the partner of choice for the delivery of energy infrastructure solutions across Australia. To support our strategy, we're focused on four asset classes: contracted power generation, electricity transmission, gas transmission and storage, and the transportation of future fuels.
As Michael mentioned, the size of the market opportunity across these asset classes is in the many billions of dollars, and with these asset classes clearly defined, we're now firmly focused on our customers and on leveraging our competitive advantages to execute successfully and create value. Examples of how we're executing our strategy are the recent acquisitions of our Pilbara Energy business and the Basslink electricity transmission interconnector. Pleasingly, these two recent acquisitions have both been fully integrated and are performing in line with their business cases. We also see significant value being created through the delivery of our organic growth opportunities, including the recently announced pipeline and storage project for CS Energy in Queensland. Our new purpose, securing Australia's energy future, brings to life the unique role APA plays as an energy infrastructure partner.
It reminds us all at APA of the essential role we play to deliver reliable, affordable, and lower emissions energy for our customers, Australia's industries, and our communities. It's been pleasing to see APA once again deliver a solid financial and operational performance over the past twelve months. Total statutory revenue, excluding pass-through revenue, was AUD 2.59 billion, up 7.9%. Statutory profit for FY 2024 was AUD 998 million. This was in part driven by the remeasurement of APA's pre-existing 88.2% interest in the Goldfields Gas Pipeline as we move to full ownership of that asset as part of the Pilbara acquisition. This more than offset the non-cash AUD 144 million pre-tax impairment of the Moomba-Sydney Ethane Pipeline, which was recognized due to our customer ceasing operations.
Underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization of AUD 1.89 billion represented a 9.7% increase on the previous year. On a reported EBITDA basis, earnings were up 3% to AUD 1.73 billion. Distributions were up 1.8% to AUD 0.56 per security. We invested AUD 833 million of capital in organic growth projects, and we successfully refinanced all of APA's near-term debt maturities, including raising AUD 2.2 billion of new facilities in recent months. This means we don't have any debt maturing until March 2027. I'm pleased to update today that underlying EBITDA guidance for FY 2025 is reaffirmed at between AUD 1.96 billion and AUD 2.02 billion. FY 2025 distribution guidance is also reaffirmed at AUD 0.57 per security. Financially, we're in good shape.
In FY 2024, we continued to focus on improving our safety performance and building the skills and culture required to execute our strategy. Our total recordable injury frequency rate improved significantly, with a 35% decrease against last year. In wellbeing, we undertook a psychosocial risk review and commenced the implementation of a psychosocial risk protocol, which we will embed over the coming year. Employee engagement also improved, with our annual culture and engagement survey showing engagement score of 72%. We've continued to invest in the diversity of our employees. Representation of women across our total workforce increased to 32.4%, and women in senior leadership roles increased to 39.2%. Improving diversity in early careers remains a focus, and we continue to take action to build a pipeline of talent for future leadership.
This has helped us achieve a 63% representation of women in our 2024 graduate and internship programs. Our 2024 apprenticeship program comprised 44% women, which is more than double what we had only two years ago. We're making a positive difference for our people. Delivering operational excellence goes to the heart of our social license and underpins our ongoing financial results. In this regard, we've continued to improve our systems and processes, including the delivery of Workday, a business-wide platform for APA's financial and people data, and ERP, and we delivered that on time and on budget. We've progressed our environmental improvement program to enhance our waste, soil, and water management practices. Michael spoke earlier to our many climate-related initiatives during the year, so I won't repeat those, and we continue to make strong progress with our Reconciliation Action Plan commitments.
So again, we're delivering on our social and environmental commitments. Turning now to regulation, and earlier this month, we confirmed that the Australian Energy Regulator has released a draft decision following its review of the form of regulation to apply to the South West Queensland Pipeline. The draft decision recommends that the SWQP should not be subject to full price regulation and that the existing light regulation should remain in place. We welcome the AER's draft decision to maintain the current form of regulation, and this decision, if confirmed, creates confidence for us to make the necessary investment in our East Coast Gas Grid to support energy security for our customers and for consumers. Now, while the AER is yet to reach a final decision, the draft decision is certainly a step in the right direction, particularly given the projected future gas supply shortfalls on the East Coast.
APA's East Coast Gas Grid expansion plans are well progressed, and we expect further consideration of our initiatives to be made over the coming months. To close, I'd like to thank the board for their guidance, challenge, and support. And to Peter and Debbie, again, on behalf of management, thank you for your support for many, many years. To the executive leadership team, for your focus and for delivering the exceptional outcomes I mentioned today. I'd also like to thank our customers and our partners for entrusting APA as Australia's energy infrastructure partner. And to all our employees, thank you for your hard work, your ingenuity, and your commitment to APA's success, and your commitment to securing Australia's energy future. With that, I'll now hand you back to the chairman.
Thank you, Adam. I'd like to turn now to the formal business of the meeting. Security holders and proxy holders attending the meeting online can vote through the online platform by clicking on the Get a Voting Card box at the bottom of the webcast. For those attending in person, you must be holding a yellow card to vote at this meeting. Please mark your yellow card on each of the resolutions. If you hold securities jointly with another person, only the person holding the yellow card may vote. Your cards will be collected at the end of the meeting. Only those holding yellow or blue cards are entitled to ask questions at this meeting. Visitors holding red cards are welcome, but not entitled to ask questions.
If anyone has not yet registered or has not been given a colored card, please identify yourself, now to a representative of our registry, Link Market Services, so that we can register you and issue you with the appropriate card. The resolutions for today's meeting are displayed on the screen. In addition to the ordinary resolutions in items one to six, as I mentioned earlier, we also have three special resolutions which have been requisitioned by a group of security holders led by Market Forces. Resolutions seven A and B require at least 75% of the votes cast by security holders to be passed. Resolution 7 C is a conditional advisory special resolution, also requiring at least 75% of the votes.
However, it will only be put to the meeting if Resolution 7 A and B are passed by the required majority, and based on the proxies lodged ahead of the meeting, this will not occur, and so Resolution 7 C will not be put to the meeting. Finally, resolution eight is a conditional spill resolution and has been included because the first strike was received on APA's Remuneration Report at last year's annual meeting. The conditional spill resolution is only put to the meeting if more than 25% of the votes cast by security holders on item one are against the adoption of the remuneration report, and again, based on the proxies lodged ahead of the meeting, APA will not receive a second strike, and accordingly, the conditional spill resolution in Resolution 8 will not be put to the meeting.
Security holders will be able to ask questions specific to each resolution to be put to the meeting before voting on the resolution. Questions in relation to general business will be taken at the end of the meeting. For those security holders who are here in person and wish to ask a question or make a comment on a particular resolution, I will invite you at the appropriate time to ask your question, standing at the microphones, the standing microphones located in each aisle. For those security holders who are unable to come to the microphone, please raise your card and we will have an attendant come to you. Once I've addressed questions from security holders here in person, I'll then take questions from the webcast platform and phone.
The first item of business today is the adoption of the remuneration report for the year ended June 13, 2024 . The remuneration report is included in the Directors' Report section of the Annual Report and details remuneration received by directors and APA's key management personnel for the year ended June 30, 2024 . Resolution one is an ordinary resolution and will be passed if more than 50% of the votes cast by security holders entitled to vote are in favor of the resolution. We have listened to the concerns of security holders following the first strike on the remuneration report at last year's meeting. We trust the 2024 remuneration report clearly demonstrates the alignment of remuneration outcomes with company performance and delivering value to our security holders.
As I noted earlier, based on the proxies lodged ahead of the meeting, it's clear that the votes on Resolution 1 will not meet the 25% against threshold for APA to receive a second strike on the remuneration report. The votes on this Resolution 1, therefore, will not trigger a conditional spill resolution. I'd now like to invite questions or comments on Resolution 1, and we'll start with any questions from the floor. If you have a question or comment, please make your way to the phone or otherwise raise your card. Sir.
Good morning. My name is Martin Mansfield. I'm a shareholder, which I inherited, in fact, from my mum and dad, who were investors with APA for a very long time. I'm pleased to see that APA's latest remuneration report continues to prioritize total shareholder returns as part of its long-term incentive plan... However, last Friday, our share price fell more than 6%, wiping AUD 628 million from our market capitalization. This was following news that our largest shareholder, UniSuper, has decided to sell AUD 500 million worth of APA securities. Clearly, this sale has hurt investor returns. My question is: did UniSuper communicate to APA why they made this sale? And were these losses for shareholders a result of APA's involvement in the development of the Beetaloo Basin? Thank you.
Look, I'm not entirely sure that that question relates to the remuneration report, and I know you put it there. But look, I will answer it now, but I'd ask other people to please ask questions relevant to the remuneration report. What UniSuper... It's a matter for them to say what they want to say publicly, but my understanding is that the APA holding is held in their defined benefit fund. They are still a significant security holder of APA, and they were simply rebalancing that portfolio. And as I understand it, that's the reason that they sold the shares. Securities, sorry, I should say. Any other questions on the remuneration report? No? Are there any questions, Nicole, any questions or comments from the platform or phone?
No, Chairman, there are no questions on the platform, but we'll now go to the phones. Operator, are there any questions from the phones?
There are no phone questions for this item of business.
Great, thank you. The details of the total valid proxies for this agenda item are displayed on the screen. Now, the next four items of business relate to the election and re-election of directors on the board of the responsible entity, APA Group Limited. Those directors being Sam Lewis, David Lamont, Debbie Goodin, and myself. Under the company's constitution, at each annual meeting of the company, one-third of the directors, and those who've held office for three years since election, must retire from office. They are, however, eligible for re-election. On this basis, two directors are required to retire by rotation as directors this year, namely Debbie and myself, both of us being eligible for re-election. The nominations for Sam and David for election are to fill casual vacancies on the board.
The company's constituent documents require that APA security holders approve the candidates for each, for nomination as a director. Now, in the interest of time, we intend to have each director up for election or re-election address the meeting, before inviting any questions or comments from security holders on any of these resolutions. As I am one of the directors seeking re-election, I'll hand over now to James Fazzino to chair the meeting in relation to those resolutions. Thank you, James.
Thank you. Thank you, Michael, and good morning to security holders. Resolution 2 is the approval of the board-endorsed nomination of Sam Lewis for election as Director of APA Group Limited. Sam was appointed on first of October, 2024, and has been determined by the board to be an independent director. The notice of the meeting sets out some biographical material about Sam, and it, it is intended that she will take over the role of Chair of the Audit and Finance Committee when Debbie retires as a director in February. I'll now ask Sam to address the meeting.
Thanks, James, and good morning to you all. It's a privilege to be here today standing for election to the APA Group board. APA plays a significant role in the energy sector in Australia, and we play a critical role in the transition in the years ahead. My connection to APA goes back many years, having worked on the initial spin-out of APA from AGL during my career at Deloitte. APA was a very different organization back then, and I followed the progress and growth of APA with interest ever since. During my professional career, which included fourteen years as a partner at Deloitte and my subsequent career as a non-executive director, I've worked with companies across a cross-section of industries, including infrastructure and regulated businesses such as Aurizon Holdings and APAC, the owner of Melbourne Airport.
I have extensive experience chairing audit committees and as a director overseeing significant capital expenditure, transformation, capital management, and M&A. As well as my responsibilities as a director of the APA Group, I'm currently the non-executive director on three other organizations. I'm committed to serving your interests diligently and with integrity, and I really look forward to contributing positively to APA's journey over the years ahead. Thank you.
Thank you, Sam. Resolution 3 is the approval of the board-endorsed nomination of David Lamont for election as a director of APA Group Limited. David was appointed on first of October 2024, and has been determined by the board to be a non-independent director. The notice of the meeting sets out some biographical material about David, and it is intended that he will take over the role of Chair of the People and Remuneration Committee, following Peter's retirement from the board at the conclusion of today's meeting. I'll now ask David to address the meeting.
Thank you, James. Good morning. My name is David Lamont. Today, I seek your support as I stand for election to serve as a member of the APA Group Board of Directors. My professional qualifications and work experience are detailed in the notice of meeting. In support of my nomination, I would like to take a moment to outline why I believe I can contribute strongly to the ongoing success of your company. I've been a security holder of APA since 2021. I believed then, and still do today, that APA has a strong business model focused on energy infrastructure, operations, and development. A portfolio of energy infrastructure assets, especially in gas transmission, that will play a central role in the Australian economy, and a balance sheet able to fund both healthy distributions while also investing in the energy transition.
This energy transition brings uncertainty that creates both opportunities and risks. Over my working life, I have gained significant senior executive experience across a diverse range of geographies and sectors. This has enabled me to form a broad perspective on strategy, operations, financial and risk management, and a deep understanding of what drives a successful business. I have extensive experience in the allocation of capital, delivering major capital works, while also ensuring strong financial discipline and reward to shareholders and security holders. I believe these skills are complementary to those of the current board and executive team. My commitment is that I will use my values, experience, and capabilities to help APA to both manage its current assets, but also its future portfolio in the best interest of all security holders. I thank you again for your consideration and look forward to your support.
Thank you, David. Resolution 4 is the approval of the board-endorsed nomination of Michael Fraser for re-election as a director of APA Group Limited. Michael was appointed a director in September 2015 , and chairman in October 2017 . He's been determined by the board to be an independent director. The notice of meeting sets out some biographical material about Michael. I will now ask Michael to address the meeting.
Thank you, James. 2024 marks my fortieth year of involvement in the energy industry, and I guess that apart from anything else, that qualifies me as an industry veteran. Certainly qualifies me as an old bloke. The energy industry is something that I'm very passionate about, and I'm also very passionate about APA and its future, particularly the critical role we have to play in Australia's energy transition. Helping not only our customers, but the industry and the country more broadly to decarbonize, while at the same time seeking to keep energy supplies both reliable and affordable. I've gained experience across most aspects of Australia's energy markets through a variety of roles, some of which are outlined in today's notice of meeting.
I believe my background and experience leaves me well-placed to contribute to the APA board, and I'd be honored to be re-elected by security holders this morning. Thank you.
Thank you, Michael. Resolution 5 is the approval of the board-endorsed nomination of Debbie Goodin for re-election as a director of APA Group Limited. Debbie was appointed director in September 2015 . She has been determined by the board to be an independent director. Debbie is due to stand for re-election, as she's held the office for three years since her last election, and must retire from office. However, is eligible for re-election. As mentioned earlier, Debbie is standing for election today to ensure an orderly transition of her role of Chair of the Audit and Finance Committee before she retires from the board at the end of February next year. I'll now hand over to Debbie to address the meeting.
Thanks, James. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is my great privilege to be before you today, standing for re-election as a director of APA Group. I'm not intending to speak through my qualifications and experience, as this is clearly set out in the notice of meeting. I have been a director of APA Group for the past nine years, and for most of this time have been the Chair of the Audit and Finance Committee, and prior to that, the Audit and Risk Committee. I have also served on all of the other committees that APA has had in place over this past nine years. APA has transitioned from a mainly pure play gas transmission company when I joined the board back in 2015, to now be a diversified energy company, well positioned to fully participate in Australia's energy transition.
I am proud of this repositioning of the business, as well as APA's environmental, social, and governance commitments that have been well progressed, but with lots more work to be done. As you will see, have seen in the notice of the meeting, this is my last AGM as a director of your company. It has been announced that I will be resigning at the end of February and have agreed to stay for the next four months to ensure an orderly transition as a part of the board renewal. I am proud to have served the company during the past nine years, and you have my full commitment until until my retirement at the end of February. I am proud that I will be leaving a strong and successful company, and that APA is well-positioned for future growth.
I look forward to your support today for my re-election.
Thank you, Debbie. I would now like to invite questions or comments on any of these four resolutions relating to the election or re-election of directors, and we'll start with questions from the floor. If you have a question or comment, please make your way to the microphone, or otherwise raise your hand with your card. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I'd like to introduce Lewis Gomez of the Australian Shareholders' Association.
Good morning, Acting Chairman. I'd like to speak in relation to two of the directors. I'll perhaps do one at a time, might be easier. Mr. David Lamont, we strongly welcome him to the board. He's very well known to us in his former chief financial officer roles with BHP and CSL. I think he spent many, many years with BHP, a fantastic company, with fantastic assets, but also fantastic capital management and fantastic dividend policies. He then went, I think, briefly to CSL, and listening to one of his investor presentations, I was very impressed by how quickly he had come to grasp the many wheels within CSL. Both BHP and CSL are very complex companies, and Mr. Lamont came to grips with CSL, I thought, remarkably quickly.
So to have that sort of intellect on this board, I think is a tremendous asset. There's another reason why we support Mr. Lamont, given his financial background, and I'm not for one moment doubting the capability of the financial expertise on the board and within the executive, and I'll come to that under general business. But I think with Mr. Lamont's experience with companies like BHP and CSL, companies with low debt, companies that pay dividends out of after-tax profits, I think he will bring another perspective. I won't say a different perspective, but I think he'll bring another set of experiences to APA. And I'm sure the board discussions are very open around these matters, but we think Mr. Lamont will contribute significantly to those discussions.
And, if I may share a brief conversation I had with Mr. Fraser, I did ask him, how did he manage to secure Mr. Lamont on this board? And he said, "Well, I got in early." So, thanks to Mr. Fraser for getting in early, and thanks for Mr. Lamont for accepting the offer. Thank you.
Thank you, Lewis.
Mr. Chair, I'd like to introduce Charlie Kingston.
Thank you. Charlie Kingston from K Capital. Just a question, and I think we've got 4 resolutions, but for, I suppose 3 of the directors, and I'd appreciate a comment from, from each. But I suppose it primarily regards the poor shareholder returns over the past 10 years, now that the APA shares are currently trading at a 10-year low. Which is a bit strange because it's an infrastructure stock, and you would have thought that in a highly inflationary period, where you want to hide is infrastructure, given that, it's essential and you can pass on some of those costs.
But nevertheless, we are trading at a ten-year low, and I understand that there may be an ESG discount applied for gas and what have you, but clearly, if you look at Origin, AGL, they've done very well over recent years, so not sure that ESG issue would be fair. And I accept there's been a lot of turnover at the CEO level. But nevertheless, if you look just over the past five years, free cash flow per share has hardly moved. And to be honest, free cash flow is a fairly subjective metric. It's before a lot of the supposed growth CapEx, which has been significant. Now, our debt has gone. It's increased AUD 3 billion over the past five years, so there's been a lot of CapEx spent.
Particularly, there's been a recent acquisition whereby you raised money at AUD 8.50. You know, the stock was above nine prior to that acquisition. There was some that suggested that was an overpriced acquisition, given you paid, I think it was thirteen times EBITDA, a lot more expensive than what APA was trading on. And I know you said it was accretive and what have you, but again, that seems a bit subjective. But if we look at reported EBIT, that's down 20% over five years, and that's obviously before interest, so we can't attribute that to the rising cost of debt. But so clearly, there's been a lot going on within APA, but again, over 10 years, the share price is down, which is a fairly disappointing outcome.
But just hoping to get, I suppose, the new directors' thoughts as to why APA is being rated so poorly by the market. I think, Samantha, you are on the board of Aurizon, which similar story, an infrastructure company that's performed very poorly. It's down heavily over the past 10 years. I think, Michael, you were also on the board of that, so maybe any lessons from why Aurizon has performed so badly, given APA is also an infrastructure stock, so any lessons there would be appreciated. And then maybe on the M&A point, again, we've spent a lot of money, but it doesn't seem like that's getting reflected in the actual earnings of the company, maybe it's yet to come, but any lessons? I think, Samantha, you're also on the board of Orora.
Certainly been topical given the recent M&A, and they raised money, and they're trading a lot below that price. Michael, I believe you're on the board of that as well. Seems like a lot of common directorships, but I suppose to summarize, if Samantha, you could touch on why you think APA has performed so poorly over the past 10 years, what are the lessons from Aurizon, given the similarities? Likewise, Michael, given I think you've been on the APA board since 2015, has the growth CapEx not worked? Why are our financials going backwards, given all the acquisitions, has the M&A not worked? Maybe comment on, you know, other learnings from Orora, et cetera. And I did have a question for Debbie, but I've forgotten it, but I'll come back to that.
Don't wanna exclude you, but yeah, maybe a comment from, please, from Samantha and Michael on those critical issues. Why is APA rated so poorly, given we've spent a lot of money? Why are our earnings going back, and just any learnings from the other boards that you sit on? Thanks.
Thank you, Charlie, for your message. The board believes free cash flow is the right metric, and as you say, that has steadily gone up, and we're very comfortable with the acquisition and metrics. Michael, I might let you just make a few comments. What we're not gonna comment on is what's happened in other places. If you want to ask questions there, the appropriate venue is those other places. Michael?
Yeah. Look, as I said in my formal address, there are a number of issues. I mean, one of the things, particularly when you look over a ten-year period, there is no question about the correlation between interest rates and APA's stock price. It's just heavily correlated, and when interest rates were at their lowest, is when our stock price was at the highest. So that clearly has had an influence.
We have also, and I said this last year, and we've been saying it to our investors through the year. We're at a period where we're balancing the rate of growth in our distributions, which, as I've said in the formal part of my presentation, that they've risen for 20 years now, but the rate of growth of our distributions has pared back, as we as a board look at the opportunities that we have ahead of us and trying to balance continuing that growth for our security holders because we know it is highly valued, but at the same time making sure that we've got the balance sheet in good shape for the significant growth opportunities that we have ahead of us.
Again, as I also said, there are regulatory issues that have been around over the last six months, twelve months in particular. Adam talked to those around the AER. Now, that seems to be heading in the right direction now, but we'll wait until that gets there with a final decision. So there are a number of reasons, and you overlay the whole question obviously. We have been pivoting our strategy. We have also had to invest very heavily to set APA up for success, and you've obviously been through our results presentations. You'll see it outlined there by management. We have invested heavily in the business over the last few years in systems, processes, people, the whole capability set of the organization.
In part, that's because we had underinvested for a number of years, but it's also because we're going into new part, new areas of business around electricity transmission as one kind of very obvious example versus our traditional gas transmission business. So there's a number of reasons. That's why I acknowledged it upfront in my formal presentation, and the board is very focused on trying to resolve those issues, see continued growth, and see recovery in the share price.
Thank you, Michael, and Sam, do you have anything to add?
No, I would just add, as a new director, I think one of the things that's really important is actually you're not anchored to the past. So both David and I are really focused on the opportunities in the future. We had the opportunity of attending our first board meetings recently, and you know, the company is clearly focused on delivering on the strategy that Adam outlined, and it's really encouraging as a new director to see the amount of time invested and the caliber of the executives that are really focusing on the opportunities in front of us. And I think that's the best direction for the company to go in, and they're focusing on the things that they can control.
As Michael mentioned earlier, there are many reasons that can influence the share price, and the executive and the board of the organization are focusing on the things that we can control and we can deliver.
Thank you, Sam. Charlie, I believe you had one more question for Debbie.
Well, I suppose you said it's not appropriate. I was gonna ask about the experiences from other companies. Debbie, I think you're on the board of Atlas, which is also another infrastructure company that has done a lot of M&A, and that was very topical at the time, but the stock, same as APA, is trading well below the issue price. But I was just gonna ask for the learnings on that one because I do think it is relevant to ask about other boards and recent experiences, because it's a common trend where you've all done equity issuances for supposed accretive acquisitions, and based on the share price today, it hasn't worked for any of those companies.
So that's, that's why I was just trying to understand if there are any learnings that you could share and why, going forward, they are, they are gonna work, because you raised money at AUD 8.50, trading at AUD 7.20. The stock was above AUD 9 before that acquisition, so it is a disappointing result, and that certainly is within the board's control. You decided to make that transaction, so that's not interest rates, that's not debt, that's a board decision. So that was gonna be my question for Debbie, but if you didn't want to answer that, that's okay. And I would just add that free cash flow, again, as I said, yes, it's gone up, you know, a couple of % over five years, but again, it's subjective.
There's lots of one-offs that you've excluded from that measure, but the one-offs do seem to keep occurring, and that is obviously before all the growth CapEx, which is yet to deliver for shareholders.
Okay, Charlie, so thank you for those questions, and we'll move on to another security holder. Are there other questions from the floor?
Mr. Chair, there is a follow-on question from Lewis Gomez again.
Thank you, Lewis.
Thank you, Chairman. I'm not sure whether I said it. Oops!
Oops.
Oh, are you okay?
I am indeed. Thank you. Sorry about that. I think I've perhaps forgot to mention that I'm here today representing just over three hundred security holders, who collectively own around three million securities. I wanted to talk just briefly with regard to Mr. Fraser, as in his role as chairman, and just acknowledge the tremendous access that we've had with Mr. Fraser and his team, including yourself, over many years. I think the last meeting we had with Michael there were six people from APA, including Mr. Fraser, and just two of us from little old ASA. So we really do value that, the time Mr. Fraser and other executives and directors give us.
We don't always agree, and I'll come to that under general business, but I've found Mr. Fraser always willing to listen. He's a good listener, as are the other directors, and I want to acknowledge that here. And also, he did touch on matters relating to the climate transition, and I think he's personally driven a lot of that from within APA. It's a very important topic. We're gonna have some differences with some of the attendees later today, I think. But there's no doubting in my mind that Mr. Fraser is very committed to doing what APA can to help that energy transition along. So, thank you.
Lewis, we always appreciate the dialogue we have with the ASA. Meeting with the ASA is always a great meeting, and I would absolutely agree with your comments on Michael. He's an outstanding chair. Are there any other comments or questions from the floor? Okay, so that appears to be it from here. Nicole, are there questions or comments from the platform or via telephone?
Chair, there are no questions from the platform, but we'll now go to the phones. Operator, are there any questions on the phones?
Chair, we have a question from Choon Kiat Tan. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Good morning. Yeah, obviously, I think share price at ten-year low, distribution at all-time high, albeit, you know, a slower growth. But really, I think somehow, you know, I, I hate to say this, but I've actually spoken to a fund manager friend recently, and his question is, you know, "Is the company actually sitting on, you know, a portfolio of stranded assets?" That's one. And then also the other thing, you know, really, how do we actually balance out between APA's role to deliver, you know, the critical gas and also, you know, the government's exclusion of gas under the Capacity Investment Scheme? And, and really, you know, obviously, we have been investing a lot, you know, to transition this company, and when are we really gonna see the returns?
Yeah, so really, I mean, I surely believe the company has actually gone through some sort of a medium-term, five- to ten-year type of modeling and see, you know, how secure the existing cash flow is, and also what are, what the acquisitions can actually make a difference. So I really want to hear, you know, given that the share price at ten-year low, is the market telling us that our company, while this is critical, but it's not being acknowledged, and, you know, there's something that the market doesn't, you know, see, that the board doesn't see? Would you care to comment on that?
So look, thank you for your question. The question doesn't relate specifically to the election of directors. The chairman, Michael, you'll make some comments with regard to your questions in general business. Can we now move to-
All right
... other questions on the phone, please?
Operator, are there any further questions on the phone?
On the phone at this time.
Operator, are there any further questions on the phones?
There are no further questions on the phone at this time.
Excellent. So, let's move on. The details of the total valid proxies for each of these agenda items are displayed on the screen. I'll then now hand back to our Chair, Michael, to chair the rest of the meeting. Thank you.
Thank you very much, James. Resolution 6 which is the next item of business, is the approval for the grant of performance rights to the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Adam Watson, under the APA Group Long Term Incentive Plan. APA Group Limited is seeking security holder approval for the grant of 287,284 performance rights to the CEO as part of his annual long-term incentive award for FY 2025. I'd now like to invite questions or comments on Resolution 6, and we'll start with any questions from the floor. If you have a question or comment, please make your way to the microphone or otherwise raise your card.
Can I see your registration card, please? Charles. That's it. Sorry, I'll introduce you. Mr. Chair, we have a question from shareholder Charles Weeks. Mr. Weeks?
Yeah. Mr. Chairman, I cannot support this, this approval, these grants. You mentioned... Oh, before I get onto that, could you please ask the secretary in future reports, the first item should be the inflation over the last previous twelve months covered by the report. Here we have our income, shareholders' income has gone up by 1.8%, yet inflation is 4.6%. To me, that means the shareholders' return has gone back by 2.8%. Is that not correct?
In real terms, looking at it the way you have-
Yes, in real terms.
Y es.
We've gone backwards. And you want to give him performance grants for going backwards? I can't understand that.
Yeah. Look, just to be clear, these are performance grants that get tested against, and we've laid it out there. There are a number of measures. They get tested in three years' time against those measures. So these grants are forward-looking, and they will only be of any benefit to Adam if the measures, which are around TSR and return on capital, meet the hurdles that are set, and they are achieved in three years' time. So it's nothing to do with where we are today. This is a forward-looking grant.
Perhaps he should have gone back this couple years ago.
I'd just say to you, under this year's long-term incentive, the long-term incentive component, that was tested, the payout on that, on total shareholder return, which is what you're talking about, effectively was zero.
True.
So he received nothing.
And so he should be.
Which-
Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you. Which I think when you see the votes on the... Well, you've seen the votes on the REM report, so. All right, are there any other questions from the floor? If not, Nicole, are there any other questions or comments from the platform or the phones?
Chairman, there are no questions from the platform. We'll now go to the phones. Operator, are there any questions on the phones?
There are no phone questions for this item of business.
Thank you. The details of the total valid proxies for this agenda item are displayed on the screen. Right, moving to Resolution 7 A, B, and C. These are resolutions requisitioned by a group of security holders, led by Market Forces, as I talked about before. This group represents less than 0.01% of APA securities on issue. Resolution 7 A and B are special resolutions seeking to amend the constitutions of APA Infrastructure Trust and APA Investment Trust, respectively. As mentioned earlier, Resolution 7 C is conditional on seven A and B being passed by 75% of security holders and is also a special resolution. As I also mentioned earlier, based on the proxies received ahead of the meeting, Resolution 7 A and B will not be passed by the required majority.
Resolution 7 C requests that APA Group Limited, in its capacity as responsible entity, prepares and publishes a report analyzing the consistency of APA Group's planned capital expenditure with our climate commitments and a Paris-aligned scenario in which global energy emissions reach net zero by 2050. The board's response to these resolutions is set out in the notice of meeting. In addition to our response in the notice of meeting, and as I mentioned in my formal address, further information on APA's climate-related plans, activities, progress, and climate-related data are contained in the climate report on our website. And if you have an interest in this, I suggest you go and look at it because we are very transparent. As I indicated earlier, Resolution 7 C will not formally be put to the meeting. However, I will invite questions on all three resolutions together.
Before I open to questions on these resolutions, I'd also like to make some additional remarks in relation to potential future gas infrastructure projects, including Beetaloo and our climate-related disclosures. Since we released our climate transition plan in 2022, we've engaged extensively with our security holders in relation to it. We've detailed in our climate reports for both 2023 and 2024, the feedback that we've received from security holders and our responses to that feedback. So we have listened, and we have responded. I believe, responded appropriately, including with enhanced disclosures. We already disclose a gross estimate for Scope 1 and 2 emissions related to growth from projects on which we've reached a final investment decision.
But in line with our approach of enhancing disclosures, in future climate reports, we will include a more granular breakdown to specifically show the impacts of individual major capital investments which have reached a final investment decision. This would include Beetaloo-related projects if they occur. We will also enhance our disclosures of Scope 3 emissions in future climate reporting, to provide estimates of Scope 3 emissions for major investments that have reached a final investment decision. In relation to APA's planned future capital expenditure and its consistency with a Paris-aligned scenario, I'd like to show you this slide from our 2024 annual results presentation. Now, this slide shows estimates of the size of the addressable markets relating to Australia's energy transition that we are pursuing into the future.
The thing that should stand out, apart from the overall scale of what needs to be spent on these segments of Australia's energy transition, is that gas transmission and storage are less than 10% of the markets we are pursuing. So it's clear that if we're successful in executing our strategy, our future capital expenditure will overwhelmingly be non-gas transmission related. How successful we will be is obviously for the future. I'd now like to invite questions or comments on Resolution 7 A to Seven C, and we'll start with questions from the floor. If you have a question, please make your way to the microphone.
One zero zero.
We'll take first question from over here.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce you to Jeff Maddox, please.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Yes, my name is Jeff Maddox. I'm a small shareholder and self-funded retiree. My question actually is for the auditors. APA's latest annual report states, "All gas infrastructure and electricity generation and transmission assets have a maximum useful life end date of financial year 2060 and financial year 2057, respectively." Will these assets be fully depreciated by 2060, regardless of when they were constructed?
I'll repeat Jamie's answer, and the answer is yes.
Thank you. And a follow-up one: Does this apply to both new and existing assets? For example, would the large-scale Beetaloo pipelines only have approximately a thirty-year useful life if they were completed in 2030?
Well, look, I, I'll answer that, and that's obviously a matter for the future, and as I'll, well, I'll say it now, there is a real lack of clarity about what future infrastructure there may be in the Beetaloo. It is very, very early on. There is a lot of work that needs to be done by the upstream players, the people, gas producers, the people intending to produce the gas, before we have any idea about exactly . . . And we're talking about large scale here. There is a small scale pipe we're involved in at the moment, but just to answer this question, because you're obviously thinking about larger projects, there's a lot of work that needs to happen before we have any real definition around that and could make any reliable comment to you on that.
Right. So realistically, they, if they're built, they won't be finished by 2030, so their useful life would be even shorter than 30 years.
I just, as I said, there is a real lack of definition at this stage of any large-scale projects.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There's a question over on this side?
Yes, Mr. Chair, I have a question from Adam Verwey.
Hi, I'm one of the 128 shareholders who filed this resolution, representing a combined investment of around about AUD 600,000, which is not a small amount of investment in the company. While the APA Group should be recognized for diversifying its business to be more focused on electricity transmission and renewables, further steps into the gas industry involve considerable risk for the company and its shareholders. The response from the company to these resolutions suggests that the company either does not understand the full extent of the risks of the proposed expansion into the Beetaloo Basin, or that it is unwilling to share those risks with its shareholders. Without adequate reporting to its shareholders, as outlined in the resolution, the company is transferring those risks to its shareholders.
In particular, shareholders who have their own commitments and obligations around climate and net zero require APA Group to understand and be committed to meeting its own climate and emission reduction targets. In the last week, we've seen APA Group's largest shareholder halve its investment in the company, and without a demonstrated commitment to the company's own climate plans, we risk seeing more significant investors turn away from the company. Institutional investors like super funds have a fiduciary duty to their own clients, and needing to ensure their assets match their own climate commitments, could find APA Group to be incompatible with the expectations of their members and their own climate goals.
As someone who has led an investment committee at a superannuation fund and sat on numerous other investment committees, the level of reporting requested by the resolution meets the basic expectations of investors and should not be onerous to the company that has a commitment to meeting its own climate goals. As shareholders, we need adequate reporting to ensure that the company's assets aren't at risk of becoming stranded, and to ensure that shareholders aren't the ones sitting with the risk of greenwashing.
Look, in response to that, as I have said just now, actually, we are very transparent about this. The issue is that we don't have definition around what any future project may, large-scale project may be. As I said, we already disclose, and that's why I'm saying to folk, if you have an interest in it, go and have a look at our climate report. There's a climate report, there's a climate data book with all the data, and then there's a methodology about how we've made our calculations. So we're very transparent. We have a section in there which, I acknowledged this morning, we talk about growth in our emissions from growth, yeah, from growth projects.
What I have said is that, again, this morning, we will break that down further so that you can see what growth in emissions may come from what projects when they reach a final investment decision. That's when we've got definition around it. We will disclose the Scope One, Scope Two, and Scope Three emissions, and we will disclose our plans about how we will manage those emissions. Perhaps if I can just. It's probably worth expanding on it now. There is, as I said, there is a real lack of definition about a large-scale project out of the Beetaloo Basin.
Everybody understands that there is a lot more exploration work that needs to be done to prove up the resource, to find the resource, and then for the upstream parties to ultimately decide which markets they want to target and whether they can do that economically or not. The only part of the development of the Beetaloo that has any real definition at the moment is a pilot, related to the pilot wells that they've built. For our other security holders who may not be aware, the Northern Territory currently gets 88% of its electricity from gas-fired generation. It is dependent on gas for keeping the lights on in the Northern Territory. What has happened, their source of supply was a field called Blacktip, offshore up off the territory. That has failed to meet its contractual requirements.
They've also been now, then, because it's been failing to meet its requirements, they've been using what's called tail gas, basically the tail end of the Bayu Undan field, which has also reached the end of its life as an LNG project. And what the Northern Territory government has done is it has contracted with two proponents of the Beetaloo Basin, upstream producers, Tamboran and another organization called Empire, to buy gas from them from 2026. And Tamboran, which is where we're involved at the moment, will end up supplying 60% of the Northern Territory's gas supplies. And as I said, 88% of their electricity comes from gas generation. So we are involved in, in terms of our business, it doesn't get much smaller in terms of pipelines.
It's a 35 km simple lateral to connect their wells into the main pipeline that runs up into Darwin to help keep the lights on in the territory come 2026. So that we have definition on, but even that, we have not reached a final investment decision, but we will disclose, and we will talk about how we will manage those emissions when we get to that point in time. The other thing that I would say, just on this question, because I know we've got a lineup of people here, so I may as well get this all on the table and answer a lot of the questions as we can. What we also know about any upstream project, and any pipeline project for that matter, is that it's going to be subject to significant rigorous scientific environmental assessment and approval processes.
And as I said before, we respect those processes, and I think others should also respect those processes. I also know that from our perspective, any new pipelines that we build will be to the highest engineering standards, engineering out, as far as possible, the emissions associated with it. And I was just in a presentation from APA management yesterday afternoon, talking about some of the key stuff that we can do. You would, you know, today, you would build a new pipeline differently from what you did 20 years ago. You can engineer out a lot of the emissions. So, that will be, that will be done. Look, I think I'll leave it there and go to another question on this side. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce Kate Wylie, please.
Good morning, everybody. My name is Dr. Kate Wylie. I'm a medical doctor. Thank you for the opportunity to ask my question. So climate change is already having negative impacts on Australia's health. I want the room to be aware that climate change is the greatest health problem facing humanity, according to the World Health Organization. So the Black Summer bushfires of 2020 and repeated flooding in 2022 have overwhelmed emergency management and health systems and have led to considerable acute and chronic health impacts and death. Fracking from the Beetaloo Basin will release 1.1 billion tons of CO2, making climate change and the health impacts worse. I've signed on with 17,000 Australians across the country who are calling on APA not to enable dangerous fracking in the Northern Territory.
Will you commit today to shareholders that you will not go ahead with these plans and recognize your ethical responsibility to protect human health? Thank you.
Okay, a couple of comments. So first of all, we won't make that commitment. The second thing I'd say, again, for the benefit of people in relation to the question of fracking. First of all, APA is not a producer, so be clear about that. We don't undertake any fracking ourselves. There is a whole body of evidence that with the proper regulation safeguards in place, fracking is completely safe. I'll just give you a quote from former Australian Chief Scientist, Alan Finkel, to start with. The former Chief Scientist says, "The evidence is not there that it's dangerous.
In fact, the evidence is that if properly regulated, it's completely safe." There is also a study which was done by the CSIRO, ANSTO, Macquarie University, and the University of Queensland, research that found little to no impacts on air quality, soils, groundwater, and waterways. I'd also make a couple of other... well, actually one other point. There in the Northern Territory, around the Beetaloo and the development of shale gas, they had a scientific inquiry chaired by Justice Pepper, which found that the project can be developed safely with a series of recommendations that they made are implemented. The other thing I would say, again, for the benefit of others here today, is that we, well, not we, in Australia, fracking has been going on for sixty-odd years now.
And again, as I said earlier, projects in the Northern Territory are not going to go ahead unless they get approved following rigorous scientific environmental approval processes. We will respect that process. We will respect the work that the scientists and the experts do when they make those assessments, and I think others should. The other thing that I would say is it's very clear that there are more gas supplies needed for Australia to make the transition. If the gas supplies aren't there, really the consequence of that, when we talk about health impacts, the consequence of that is that coal-fired power stations continue to run, and we've seen that already. People may well be aware, the Victorian government has reached deals.
They don't disclose the details of it, but it's very, everyone knows they've done a deal with Yallourn, they've done a deal with Loy Yang, and the New South Wales government's been very open about the deal that it's done with Eraring. Three of the largest coal-fired power stations in the country to keep running because we're not ready to make that transition. And it's very clear, the Future Gas Strategy says it, AEMO says it, the ACCC says it, we need more gas supplies to help the economy transition.
Thank you for your response. I do note that a lot of your responses were around fracking. My question was really around climate change, and so, you know, the health impacts of climate change are well understood. They're very well researched, and there's vast academic evidence around that.
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, we have a National Health and Climate Strategy directly to respond to that.
Yeah.
So anything that you do that facilitates further gas expansion, and that's what a pipeline will do, is directly going to impact on climate change, impacting on the health of communities. And I think, you know, as a company, that's something that, you know, we'd like to see you address. Thank you for your response.
So first of all, can I say, I absolutely agree with you about the health impacts of climate change. Sorry, I didn't address that in my response, but we're absolutely on the same page. And as I said in my formal address, we want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. I think the difference, and I'll use this example because it's actually come out in the last couple of days. I'll use this example. The problem with what you're suggesting is that any new gas just means it's worse for the environment, whereas what I'm saying to you is that new gas is needed so we can get a better environment. And the example I use is BlueScope at a conference the other day talked about. They use coal in their steelworks at Port Kembla.
The major opportunity they have to reduce their emissions is to replace that coal with natural gas, unless they shut down their operations. That's the major opportunity that they have. They've talked about it being 30-40 petajoules of gas a year. Now, for everybody, that's huge. That would be far and away the biggest load in Australia. There aren't currently uncontracted gas supplies that are available to meet that. The problem with your argument is that there's a great example where our emissions could go up if we transported that gas to Port Kembla, but the net result for the community, the net result for climate, the net result for the whole transition, is that we get there a whole lot quicker, and we can take coal out of the system quicker. That's the problem, and, you know, with the argument.
So we're on the same page. We agree with you. We wanna get there as quickly as we can, and we will do our bit to get there as quickly as we can, but we do wanna keep the lights on, we wanna keep energy affordable, and we wanna get there as quickly as we can.
All right.
Okay, thank you. Thank you. Do we have another question over this side?
Thank you. Mr. Chair, we also have a question from Winnie Fu, a shareholder.
Short people problems.
I was just gonna say, can we just, when we do have people approach the microphone, could the attendants just please be careful? 'Cause it is steep there, and we don't want any accidents. Thank you.
Hi, thank you for the opportunity. So you mentioned Empire and Tamboran Resources. I want to ask, so multiple reports have highlighted environmental and cultural heritage breaches by Empire Energy and Tamboran. For instance, Empire failed to inform the heritage regulators about Aboriginal stone tools found near a well, which were subsequently moved, and similarly, Tamboran instructed contractors to spray contaminated drilling water at well sites. So, and in a recent Senate inquiry, Tamboran's CEO also refused to confirm whether the company has received fines from Northern Territory regulators for its operations. Given these breaches, is APA concerned about the reputational risk of partnering with Empire and Tamboran?
I'm not aware of those issues, but obviously, you know, from our perspective, their issue is they need to get their approvals. We would obviously be concerned in ending up dealing with someone who wasn't compliant with what their obligations were under any approvals that they get. And so that's something we'll take into account if and when we get to any investment decisions, which, as I said, apart from that 35 km pipeline, we're a long, long way away from doing. We have another question over this side.
Mr. Chairman, we have a question from Rachel Deans.
Oh, hello. Great. Hi, my name is Rachel, and I work for Market Forces. Market Forces and SIX have co-filed a shareholder resolution calling for enhanced disclosures on the alignment of APA's capital expenditure with its existing climate commitments and the Paris Agreement.
APA continues to progress discussions with Tamboran Resources and Empire Energy for the development of several large-scale gas pipelines, which will enable fracking in the Beetaloo Basin. Due to the scale of these proposed pipelines, we are concerned that they will be incompatible with APA's 2030 emission targets and claims Paris alignment in limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees to prevent catastrophic climate change. The issues facing APA's existing carbon abatement efforts indicate that Beetaloo pipelines would markedly increase APA's already high reliance on carbon offsets. This offset use is particularly concerning following analysis of peer-reviewed academic research, in which we found that the offsets APA surrendered in FY 2022 and 2023 resulted in no genuine carbon abatement.
Simply put, Resolution 7 is a disclosure resolution. It calls on APA to provide security holders with information about the proposed pipelines, namely estimates of emissions and APA's plans to mitigate these emissions. We believe that enhanced disclosure and greater transparency will allow APA investors to make more informed decisions.
In response to our resolution, APA has claimed that it would be inappropriately speculative. We disagree with this assertion, considering APA's partners, Tamboran and Empire, have already disclosed a significant level of detail to the market regarding these proposed pipelines, including proposed volumes and routes. Again, our resolution only calls for estimates, and we recognize there is still uncertainty surrounding these pipelines. APA also discusses the risk of greenwashing as a reason why our resolution was inappropriate. By contrast, we believe our resolution would enhance APA's greenwashing risk, as it would reassure investors that APA has plans to manage emissions from these pipelines without increasing reliance on offsets. We believe that APA's current strategy is highlighting greenwashing risk by publicly maintaining a commitment to its emission targets while progressing large polluting gas pipelines behind closed doors.
We call on investors to vote for our resolutions to enhance disclosure regarding APA's strategy and to manage the emissions from proposed large-scale pipelines and ensure the integrity of its climate commitments. I do have two follow-up questions, please. You have mentioned a few times that you know you feel comfortable with fracking. I just wanted to ask if APA is concerned about the reputational risks of enabling the fracking of the Beetaloo Basin, considering the practice has been outlawed in Victoria and Tasmania, as well as France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom? Does the board have any concerns about the overwhelming lack of support from landholders, traditional owners, and the potential delays that may result in this?
That, that's the two questions?
No, that's my first question, then I just have one more question. I just wanted to speak to the resolution.
All right, so that, that's your first question then?
That's right.
Right. Okay. So look, we're obviously concerned about APA's reputation, and I think it's in part, you know, why I made the comment. It's very pleasing to see that anybody who knows anything about it is now very supportive about, and recognizes the role of natural gas in the energy transition. And as I said before, we're on the same page. We wanna get there as quickly as we can, but nobody's gonna forgive us, nobody's gonna forgive the politicians, nobody's going to forgive anybody, if the lights go out, energy costs continue to escalate, as we make that transition. So we have a very unique role as an infrastructure, energy infrastructure investor. We've got a unique role to play.
So yes, we're concerned about our reputational issues, and as I said, the upstream players have got to go through a very rigorous process. They've got to get their landholder agreements in place. They've got to get their traditional owner agreements in place. They have to go through both state and federal approval processes, which I'm sure yourselves and others will make submissions to. So, you know, we will await the outcome of that. The other point I would make, just in your earlier comment, be crystal clear, as I said, we are extremely transparent, and as I've said, when we know what we're talking about in terms of investments and what the emissions will be, we will disclose them. Next question?
Great, thank you. And my second question is: have investors raised concerns with APA regarding the proposed construction of the large-scale pipelines to the Beetaloo Basin?
Look, we've, our investor relations folk are here. I've had I don't know how many meetings, maybe over the course of this year. We've probably had 30, 40, I don't know how many meetings with security holders, proxy advisors, et cetera. Obviously, through the last round of those, particularly since the notice of meeting went out and your resolutions were there, obviously that was a topic for much discussion. I think, and as I've said, your resolutions won't be passed, and we'll see the numbers shortly. I think the numbers will speak for themselves as to how comfortable or not people are with the approach that we're taking.
Certainly, the vast majority of our security holders do recognize the role that APA plays, do recognize the importance of gas, do recognize that new supplies are needed for the transition, and just want to make sure that we're doing the right thing and making our disclosures as we have been. In fact, we get great compliments from most of our security holders about the level of transparency that we have in our reports.
Thank you for taking the time.
Thank you. I'll go over to this side. Lewis?
Thank you. So we have another question from Mr. Lewis Gomez.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I'd just like to put an alternative view forward, if I may. Our friends from Market Forces and other organizations are no doubt well-intentioned. We all want a cleaner, healthier climate for our one and only planet. There's no question about that, but I think we need to face up to the realities of where we are today. Mr. Chairman, you've outlined some of those realities. I think when the Paris Accords were developed, I wasn't there, so I don't have the details, but I think it was at a time when there was perhaps more optimism that the transition to renewables would be easier and cheaper and less complicated. Obviously, it's become a lot more expensive and a lot more complicated. We all know that from daily news reports.
But I just wanted to emphasize the point that you made, Mr. Chairman, about the importance of gas to our economy and to our living standards here in Australia, let alone elsewhere in the world. Now, one of the great skeptics of gas and great supporters of renewables, indeed, is our federal minister for environment, Mr. Chris Bowen, and he's recently highlighted. He's had, obviously, an epiphany. He's highlighted in recent times that the Australian gas market is facing a cumulative gas supply-demand deficit of 300,300 petajoules by 2025. Now, let's not try and work out what a petajoule is, but according to this article, that's equivalent to ten years' worth of total gas demand currently in New South Wales and Victoria, and I think you mentioned BlueScope was thirty or forty petajoules annual demand.
We're talking about 300,300 being the shortfall over a ten-year period. That's, say, three hundred petajoule shortfall each and every year. The National Energy Market has also identified these concerns, as has the ACCC, and the ACCC reminded us again last month, in fact, Victoria and New South Wales face peak period gas shortages from next winter. That's 2025. AEMO, the Australian Energy Market Operator, estimates that demand for gas power will be almost double today's levels, double, by 2043 , 2044. That's 20 years away. That might seem like a long way off, but it'll be here before we know it. And what they've predicted is that flexible gas will require thirteen gigawatts of new gas power generation to be built by 2050 . Now, apologies for all these big words. Thirteen gigawatts is a hell of a lot of power.
If you look at Eraring, it's just under a 3-gigawatt power generator. We're talking about four to five times an Eraring Power Station, and this is needed to support renewable energy. This renewable energy can't do it on its own. We all know that. You know that. James knows it. Industry in Australia, what's left of it, almost 40% of the gas provided in Australia is used by industry. They can't flick a switch and go over to electricity. If you're running brick kilns, you can't switch to electricity, you need gas, and if the gas isn't available here, what do they do? They'll just go elsewhere, won't they? So it. While our friends from Market Forces are no doubt well-intentioned, I think they live in a world that simply isn't real.
It may have been a pleasant aspiration to have had ten years ago, but it just ain't real. It ain't where we are, and for that reason, the ASA will definitely be voting against Resolutions 7 A and 7 B. Thank you for your patience.
Thanks very much, Lewis. I'll take that as a statement. Do we have another question over here?
Mr. Chairman, we have a question from Hugh Vaughn.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Hugh Vaughn. I'm a proxy representing a shareholder. You've said a couple of times in your remarks earlier that you don't have a lot of definition about the the Beetaloo project yet, and I accept and understand that. What we do have a pretty good estimate of, though, is the scale of the project and the scale of the emissions from it. You know, estimates based on production forecasts or expectations of Tamboran and Empire, combined with the pricing distribution, and the end-user emissions, would put the total at two point three billion gigatons over, sorry, billion tonnes over a 2025 year period.
So my question, my first question to you is, is APA concerned about the end-user emissions it would enable by developing the large-scale pipelines for Tamboran Resources and Empire Energy?
I'll just go back to what I said before. So first of all, I'd just say to you, well, let me go to the first thing about the scope of it. You're reading off the stuff that's been put out there by Empire Energy and Tamboran Resources, and just to give you, actually, for the benefit of other security holders, there are competing projects at the moment in the Beetaloo Basin, but they have cross- there are some cross-shareholdings. What Hugh's referring to is they've both got proposals that say, "Well, it might go north, to an offshore to Asia as an LNG project.
It might come south to the east coast of Australia, two separate pipelines. When I say we don't have definitions, so they don't know where, first of all, they don't know exactly how much gas they've got yet. They then don't know which way. They've basically options that they've got to go either way. And the third thing I would say is anybody who's been around the industry for any point of time would know the last thing that will happen is two pipelines coming to the East Coast. You would rationalize, as you would, I would suggest, probably see a rationalization of the ownership of the upstream resource, because if it is developed at any kind of scale, that's going to require very big balance sheets.
So that's why I say there's a, you know, you've been around the industry, and I said I've been around for forty years. These things take time, and typically they get rationalized before they happen, and they're not gonna happen until they get approved. So the-
It doesn't really matter where the gas is burned.
Yeah. But that's right. So you look. So I'd say to you, I gave the example of BlueScope and what they said a day ago, two days ago, about they could significantly. Wouldn't you be in favor if BlueScope was able to take coal out of the Port Kembla steelworks and reduce its emissions significantly by taking 30-40 petajoules of new gas from the Beetaloo? Wouldn't you be-
That's-
Would you not be in favor of that?
That's a devilish problem, partly because companies like BlueScope, BHP before them, have put off this problem of the carbon-
Well, it-
Associated with iron and steel production for so, so very long, while making no or little investment in alternatives. Now, there are green steel initiatives being developed. There's green steel being produced in, I forget which country, in Scandinavia now. Sweden, I think. It's actually happening now.
Yeah, but-
So there are alternatives, and BlueScope should be looking at those alternatives, not at replacing one fossil fuel with another. However, we're getting off this topic. I mean, that's a specific application, but my question is: are you concerned about the end-user emissions associated with the potential fracking of vast quantities of gas by Tamboran and-
Why I gave that example is because that applies. So I'll bring it back to another example. If the consequence of end-user emissions are gas-fired generation, which has half the emissions of coal, if those emissions result in coal being able to come out of the system earlier, then no, I'm not concerned at all. I think that's a great thing, and I think you must think that's a great thing. If you can take coal out of the system earlier and lower global emissions, I mean, it would seem logical.
It would seem.
All right
... much more logical to electrify those processes-
Ex- okay
... which is what must happen.
I think I'd-
However-
Sorry, you have one more question?
Yeah, I do have-
Thank you
... one other question, please. Falcon Oil and Gas holds a 22% interest in Tamboran's Beetaloo Basin exploration licenses. Falcon's largest shareholder is a man called a Russian billionaire called Viktor Vekselberg, who has been sanctioned by the Australian government in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Is APA concerned about the reputational risk it faces by enabling the development of the Beetaloo Basin and enriching a sanctioned billionaire?
We're aware of that, and there is a process that we need to follow, and we're following that process. We're engaging with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and so, that's what I will say about it. We're aware of it, we're following it, and we'll make sure that we tick all the boxes in relation to that matter.
Right. Thank you.
All right. We'll take another question from this side. Is there any more over this side?
Yes.
They've been there for a long time.
Yes, they have.
Mr. Chairman-
That's why I'm going that way.
... we have a question from Peggy Smith.
Thank you.
Hi, thank you. I have been standing there for a while. My name is Peggy Smith, and I'm a registered nurse. I have lived and worked in many rural regional areas where both, coal seam gas is mined and coal, and I've seen firsthand the negative detriments to health, that come from living in these areas, that happens to these community members. I've actually assisted, in intubating children who have had chronic asthma, and had to be airlifted out to other facilities, usually with a video doctor, because these areas quite often don't actually have adequate health facilities to deal with the negative detriments to the mining that, coincides with these communities. So looking at all of these negative health deficits, increased rates of childhood leukemia, I believe in areas where fracking occurs, it's, a 3% increase.
So what you said earlier, respectfully, about fracking being harmless, completely incorrect, and I can tell you because I have experienced firsthand. With all of that in mind, the infrastructure that you're looking to build essentially continues the need for gas. If we don't have this infrastructure, the gas obviously can't go ahead. We don't have a shortage of gas in the country. We've got an issue with where we're sending our gas. If we're talking about keeping it in the country and the need for it, looking forward to net zero 2050, things like that, maybe we need to be looking more at what we're selling offshore and keeping gas locally.
Okay. Well, in relation to the last piece, that's obviously a matter for government. That's referring to a gas reservation policy, so I'll leave that one alone. Look, what I quoted before was Australia's former chief scientist, Alan Finkel. I also quoted from the research done by the CSIRO, Macquarie University, University of Queensland, and ANSTO, and also the scientific inquiry into shale gas, which obviously involves fracking in the Northern Territory by Justice Pepper. And I know there's a whole body of other work, so I'm not making those statements myself. I'm simply referring to the conclusions that they've reached around fracking and the development of shale gas. We have another question. I think the other lady there has been waiting a while as well.
Mr. Chairman, we have a question from Melissa Haswell.
Thank you very much for taking my question. I am Melissa Haswell. I'm a professor. I've been working in public health, environmental health, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, and climate change for well over a decade, for forty years in my whole career, actually, and I'm a lead author of this report here, which we published in 2023.
... and it actually does provide a summary of over 2,000 peer-reviewed publications from many, many universities across the United States, where they have about 900,000 fracked wells that are operating each year. So I do disagree with your statement, respectfully, that there is no evidence. There is actually very little, if no evidence, of actually the effectiveness of regulation. It's nice to say, but in fact, year after year, we see reports right across the United States of the dangers of gas to communities. This report also brings forward, so I just wanted to say that the Pepper inquiry was in 2017 , and a very large majority of the papers reviewed in this report are from 2020 to 2024, and there are some coming out almost every day, highlighting the dangers of gas.
So we really have to take that seriously. If we don't take it seriously, then we leave communities open to the health impacts. So these include, as was said before, more severe asthma in children, up to 400,000 additional emergency parents taking their children for emergency increases in medication, 7,800 deaths from that industry across the United States, higher hospitalization and death rates from heart attacks, heart failure, respiratory disease, and some cancers, and particularly interfering with the development of the fetus in the womb, lower birth weights, higher birth defects, and also that increased risk of early childhood acute leukemia. These are very elegant studies, and they have been presented over and over, time and time again, in government forums to try and get people to listen to this.
There are reports from Harvard, Yale, right across the United States, not just one report from here in Australia, and then this includes among the infrastructure and the many steps of the fracking process, it includes compressor stations, which push gas through these pipelines, and I understand are needed every 100 km-160 km, and these are particularly polluting infrastructure because it has to maintain the pressure of the gas, and when it goes too high, releases volatile organic compounds, including benzene, oxides of nitrogen, and other toxic gases that can cause all of those health impacts I mentioned.
So my first question is, you could say it's early days, but in a sense, if you really wanna assess the costs of this pipeline and the time it will take, I wanted to know if you will commit to conducting high-quality health risk and impact assessments, and continuous monitoring of these hazardous air pollutions from all existing and planned compressor stations serving the Beetaloo Basin. And I just wanted to say this needs to include the formation of ground-level ozone, which forms from these components in the atmosphere and harms agricultural productivity.
Well, my response is, we will comply. First of all, we'll comply with whatever conditions are imposed if there is a project. If it's approved, it'll be subject, as I said, to rigorous scientific approval process. So we will do that. The-
You-
... we'll comply with the process. Yes, we'll comply with whatever conditions are imposed on us. Like I said, we respect the process, and we think that everyone should respect the process. As I've also said, and we've been, you know, I've already said it, so we're very transparent. You might have a look and see how we disclose. In fact, one of the things we talk about in our climate report, which we haven't talked about today, is the use of LIDAR technology. First company in Australia to use it, to fly helicopters over the entire length of our South West Queensland pipeline, 520 km, looking for methane emissions. The good news is, the pipelines don't leak.
The other news is, as expected, it is the compressors where you have your methane emissions and your other emissions tend to be around that. We know the pipelines themselves don't leak, and as I said before, any new pipelines, it's a lot easier to build new, engineer out the emissions from any new pipeline, or as best you can. Obviously, you may not be able to do that entirely, than it is to retrofit. And as I said, we will disclose.
Okay, I do have a second question, and that is, how many native title and traditional lands would these pipelines and their infrastructure be crossing? And have you identified those? How many are they? And considered the long and expensive process of gaining free, prior, and informed consent, and negotiating royalties with each one, in light of some of the recent decisions that have given compensation and royalties to Aboriginal communities. And I really do want to point out that there are many communities in the Beetaloo Basin that have joined together to oppose fracking there for spiritual and cultural reasons, as well as concern for their health and well-being, and particularly the health and well-being of their children and future generations.
Because in reality w e're not just talking about gas here, which is, recent research has actually shown that coal and gas are quite equivalent when you think about the entire life cycle, and when you turn it into liquefied natural gas to ship it-
Could I just thank you. I think you asked your second question. I might just answer your second question. Your second question was about landholders, and do we know? As I said before, there's a real lack of definite. We know about a 35 km pipeline, and I don't know, there, you know, might be one or two, not sure. We would know that. The rest of it are lines on a map from the proponents. So it's, and as I said, that will, in my view, never happen. You'll end up, if it comes east, it'll be one pipeline. If it goes north, it'll be to a major LNG project, it'll be one pipeline. So we don't know the answer to that yet.
But again, those approvals will be required in order for the project to proceed.
Thank you.
All right. I'm gonna take one more question on this topic, if there is one, and then I'm going to call it a day in relation to these resolutions, 'cause I think we've done it to death.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have a question from Trevor Gibb.
Thanks, Chair. Apologies to Adam, I had to walk out half through, halfway through your address. I-
He's got your name.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sorry, Adam. Anyway, I live 600 km north of Perth in Western Australia. I had the privilege the other day of driving through the wind farm at Badgingarra. Yeah, the road's not too flash, but anyway, we've had a lot of rain up that way. Totally in agreement with turbines. The only thing is I've question marked there is in regards to the lifespan of the actual turbines. Because I'm involved as a councilor up in that area. We've got a big hydrogen project, which is gonna be 450 wind turbines, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What is the life cycle of a wind turbine, and can it be recycled?
I'm looking at the front row here. Darren, did you want to take that question? There's a microphone there.
Hi, Darren Rogers, Group Executive, Energy Solutions. So thanks for the question. As you were asking the question, I was reflecting on the first wind farm I was involved in, which is Windy Hill, up on... which isn't too windy, as it turns out.
Yeah.
On the Atherton Tableland. It's 25 years old this year, operated by an entity in Queensland. So generally, when we look at the economics, we do look at a 25-year lifespan, but there's many turbines overseas that are operating longer, and you can actually re-life the site. We can actually take out the key components that are worn out, put new components in, and extend their life.
Yeah, there's been talk around that the actual blades themselves, they've been put in a hole. Is that correct or not?
I'm unsure for Badgingarra specifically.
No, I'm not referring to Badgingarra. I'm referring to worldwide.
Yeah, so generally, even with pipelines, anything that's mechanical or rotating, fiberglass blades, they will reach a fatigue life, and that's why Petrea, who's sitting beside me, who runs operations, they do blade inspections, they ensure their integrity to ensure the safe operation.
Thanks for that.
Thank you very much. So Nicole, are there any questions or comments from the platform or the phone in relation to these resolutions?
Chairman, there are no questions from the platform that have not already been covered by previous questions.
Thank you.
We'll now go to the phones. Operator, are there any questions from the phones?
There are no phone questions for this item of business.
Right. Thank you very much. So I'll now put Resolution 7 A and B to the meeting. As you can see, it's clear from the proxy votes and the votes represented on the floor of the meeting today that Resolution 7 A and B have not been passed by the 75% majority required for a special resolution. Accordingly, Resolution 7 C will not be put to the meeting. But again, I've talked about our transparency. In the interest of transparency, however, the total valid proxy votes received before the meeting on Resolution 7 C are displayed on the screen, along with those for Resolution 7 A and 7 B. It's also clear, from the proxy results shown on the screen earlier and noting the number of votes on the floor today, that there is less than 25% votes against Resolution 1.
Therefore, Resolution 8 is not required to be put to the meeting. A summary setting out the details of the total valid proxies for all agenda items, including those not formally put to the meeting, is displayed on the screen for your reference. Voting will close shortly, so please complete your yellow voting cards now if you've not done so already. A reminder to security holders participating online to please vote now as well. If you've finished, the representatives of Link Market Services will collect your yellow voting cards. Oh, and why pass it? Okay. I think there's a gentleman in the middle up there. Somebody. All right, when we get there. Gentleman and lady, and another gentleman down here. If someone could collect this gentleman's voting cards, please. Thank you. I think we have all the voting cards collected in the room now. Thank you very much.
Polls will automatically close five minutes after the conclusion of this meeting. That completes the formal business of the meeting. The poll results will be released to the market by an ASX announcement, and will also be available on APA's website as soon as possible. Moving to matters of general business, and we've already covered an enormous amount of territory, so hopefully not too far to go. We've also covered a number of questions we received in advance, so I'll now open the meeting to questions in relation to the APA business, including any questions in relation to the annual report or other matters.
Okay. Your name?
Carrie.
Carrie.
Lynn.
Lynn. Okay. Mr. Chair, we have a question from shareholder Carrie Lynn.
Yes, Carrie.
Yeah, hi. So analysis of peer-reviewed academic research from Macintosh and other authors has found that all 30,000 carbon offsets that APA surrendered in 2022 and 2023 for its gas infrastructure target failed to achieve its stated claim of increasing forest cover. So this means that these offsets represent no genuine abatement. Is APA concerned about this?
So what I would say to you is, first of all, we comply with what the regulator says in relation to these. And to be clear, for people's other benefit, there was a question raised in relation to what's called human-induced regeneration, so regeneration in growth of areas. There were these claims that were made. The government commissioned an inquiry by another former chief scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, who found that the methodology was sound. That having been said, we had surrendered, and again, the reason that you're aware of it goes to our transparency, because we disclose in great detail where we get any offsets from and what we've surrendered. And also, tick the box for you, somebody said it earlier, we surrendered in 2022 and 2023.
We didn't surrender in 2024 because this little controversy was going on, so we've held those offsets and we've surrendered other offsets while this sorted itself out. The offsets need to be approved by the Clean Energy Regulator, so we were concerned about it, and the action we took when we became aware of it was not to surrender any of them in 2024.
Thank you. And just, thank you for addressing that. And so is APA concerned about greenwashing accusations, considering APA's claim to use high-quality carbon offsets that represent genuine abatement in your climate report?
Yes. Yes, we are always concerned about that. That's why out of an abundance of caution, we had Ian Chubb come out, the regulator saying these offsets are genuine. So a different point of view to what you've suggested, but out of an abundance of caution, we didn't surrender them. And again, for the last resolutions, as I say, we don't want to make statements about emissions, then the next thing that'll happen, we'll be accused of greenwashing. So we'll disclose when we know what we're talking about.
Thank you.
Thank you. Question over this side?
Thank you. Thank you for taking my question, Mr. Chair. So in a recent opinion piece titled "Let's Not Forget the Net in Net Zero," APA's CFO references the Australian Government's Climate Change Authority's Sector Pathways Review. He claims that, quote, "The role of gas has been validated as affirming technology." However, he ignores that the same report projects gas power generation would contribute just 1% of Australia's electricity in 2050, even in a non-Paris aligned 2-degree world. By 2050, gas power generation would fall 77% from 2025 levels. Is APA concerned about misleading investors and greenwashing risk by cherry-picking quotes about the role of gas, while ignoring the data which highlights a massively diminished role of gas in the energy mix?
Yeah, look, first of all, you're focused on one scenario. As anybody who's around this space knows, there are multiple pathways to Net Zero, and as we've already seen, when renewables fall behind in their build out, you need to keep coal going longer, you're going to need gas. There's nothing untoward in what's been said there. AEMO's forecasting at least thir- I think Lewis mentioned it before, 13 gigawatts of new gas peaking plant being required. So we're not concerned. There are multiple scenarios. In fact, there's a number of scenarios put out by the IPCC, which I think have gas being at, by 2050, at 62% of its current usage in one net zero scenario.
Another net zero scenario they have has it up north of 100% of where it is, something like 120-odd% from memory of where it is today. So you're focused on one scenario, there's multiple pathways to get there.
One scenario from the Climate Change Authority that guides Australian government's decision-making.
I'll take that as a statement.
Yeah. Yep. Okay, well, yeah, you've referenced the Australian Energy Market Operator's 2024 Integrated System Plan scenarios. In these scenarios, renewables are expected to account for between 90% to 99% of East Coast power by 2034. That's across all three scenarios, and while there was a mention today, and you mentioned it again, about needing 13 gigawatts of new capacity, AEMO makes it very clear that a typical gas generator may generate just 5% of its annual potential.
Yeah.
This means that this new gas capacity will sit idle for the vast majority of the time, and this in turn implies that there will be significantly lower volumes of gas required for this, for gas power generation. Will this high renewables penetration and low gas generator utilization rate impact the value of APA's gas transmission assets?
Yeah, look, most of the g- so first of all, there's. Like for someone in the industry, it's kind of a really moment. Yes, that's right. I mean, peaking plant, which is what you need to back up, wind and solar, which is intermittent, not there all the time, they're known as peakers. Peakers have forever had a capacity factor, that is, how much how often do they get used, of let's call it 5% or less. It's part of why the design of the NEM is that you've got, when it hits the fan, you've got prices up at AUD 16,000 so that they can get paid.
It's why the gas industry is saying, "Gee whiz, we need to build all this..." Everybody recognizes the need for the gas peakers to back the system up, and you've got the federal government excluding it from the Capacity Investment Scheme. It's like saying, "We really need this, but we don't want to pay for it." I mean, it doesn't make any sense. So that would be there. The other point that I would make is, look, 90% of volumes today, and that would include gas generation, but largely go to industry. That's where the great volume of gas goes today. And until there are viable substitutes for that, then there are going to be or industry disappears.
James is Chairman of Manufacturing Australia, so he can talk ad nauseam about that, but if it does disappear, then obviously that demand will disappear.
Okay, thank you.
Okay.
Mr. Chair, we have a question from Emma Dawson.
Hello, I've just got a couple of questions about gas emissions in general. The first is, when does APA assess the emissions impacts from new assets against its emission targets? Is this before, at, or after the final investment decision?
We assess it as part of the final investment decision because there's a lot of work goes in. As I don't know what your background is. There's a lot of work that goes into the engineering, the economics, the contracting, et cetera. And in this day and age, and I can say, as I said before, I'm a veteran of the industry. I can hand on heart say emissions were never, ever considered going back, you know, 15, 20 years ago. It's very much considered now, so that's part and parcel. So that's when we consider it, and that's when we know because we know what we're talking about. We also disclose.
Thank you, and you've talked a bit about beginning reporting for Scope 3 emissions, and I just wanted to ask that despite investor calls for end-user emission targets, APA claims it cannot set such targets due to factors beyond its direct control. However, APA fully controls capital allocation for new assets, and end-user emissions for renewables assets are significantly lower than for gas assets. Given your commitment to a whole of economy perspective to lower emissions, will APA consider setting specific end-user emissions reduction targets?
So let's be clear, you're confusing two things there, 'cause end-user emissions are different from Scope 3-
Yes
... emissions.
I said that they were.
And so from our perspective, and we don't sell gas, the producers sell gas to retailers or end users, and so that's end-user emission. Our Scope 3 emissions. What I said earlier is that we will. We are setting ourselves a target. We've committed to that. I think we refer it in the climate report. I've certainly been talking to many of our security holders around it. So we will disclose, we're going to set ourselves a Scope 3 target, and as I said before, any new investment decisions, we'll disclose Scope 1, 2, and 3.
Yes, but to be clear, you will not be considering end-user emission target?
We actually publish the end-user emissions anyway. Again-
But no targets. You won't be setting any targets?
Well, no.
That's my question.
Because that's. No, because that's way out of our-
Thank you
... that's way out of our control.
Mr. Chair, we have a short follow-on question from Carrie Lynn.
Yeah, it's actually not my question, but there was an earlier question from a Mr. Chan over the phone, which I think a few of us, like, listened with interest, and I was wondering whether the board can address that as well.
Do you, Amanda?
Um, certainly.
I don't remember.
Recall the question. I'm happy to restate that in parts. Firstly, I believe Mr. Chan was talking about share price. He was asking in relation to potential stranded asset risk. Is that the question you're referring? Thank you.
... Look, my answer is we've addressed that earlier. One of the first questions early on was about the 60-year life and the life of new assets. So it is something that we consider, and I think I'll leave it at that. Do we have any other questions? I think, and please, I can see where you, where you're from. I think we've done the Beetaloo to death, so if it's a Beetaloo-related question, okay, I'll trust you.
Just a last question from this section, Mr. Chair. It's from Adam Verwey again.
In its latest climate report, APA projects that offsets and other yet-to-be-identified opportunities will account for about one-third of emissions reductions.
Mm-hmm.
With 2030 just over five years away, can APA specify any of these opportunities, or will this rely entirely on carbon offsets?
Certainly won't be totally reliant. Look, a couple of things, and again, go read our climate report. We've talked about the lot of work we've done over the last 12 months around the electrification, potential electrification, many issues with it, but we're still working on that, of the Wallumbilla compressor station, which is one of the largest kind of sources of our operational emissions. So we've got that there. As I said before as well, I just yesterday afternoon had a presentation, sat through a presentation on valves and seals that we've got a program of replacing over the next 12 months, and certainly there's a game plan being developed out to 2030.
You know, they, for the like-for-like seals they're replacing, depending on what you can do, that reduces emissions out of those by 80 to up to 98%. So yes, plenty of work going on. Thank you. All right, any other questions? It has been... I thank everybody for their patience. Nicole?
Yes, Chairman, we do have some questions on the platform.
Yep.
This next question comes from David Bryce and is in regards to the government of Victoria's decision to ban gas connections.
Yeah.
Does the state government of Victoria's decision to ban gas connections to new homes in Victoria concern APA?
Look, as I mentioned just a moment ago, 90% of the gas that we transport is for industry. So, while Victoria's the largest residential gas-consuming state, over time, it's likely to have a relatively small impact on APA's business. The other thing that I'd note, I think, which is interesting, and it'll be interesting in my view, what happens when there's a change of government, but the latest polls that I've seen say that there are only 26% of voters in Victoria who support or strongly support that ban, and there is over double that number of people who are opposed or strongly opposed to the ban. So I just think that will be interesting. But as for APA, it's a relatively small component of what we transport.
The next question comes from Mark Randall and is in relation to debt and APA's share price. The question has multiple parts. UBS analysts have recently suggested that APA's credit rating of triple B may be downgraded further due to the high level of debt APA carries. This may potentially impact on the future capital growth of APA's share price. What is the learned advice to the recent UBS comment, and is the debt serviceable and not potentially problematic?
So, multiple parts to the question, multiple answers. Look, first of all, we've actually just refinanced AUD 2.2 billion worth of our debt, and the average tenor, the average term of those, those new debt facilities is 13.4 years. So that's a real vote of confidence, from debt providers. We now have no debt maturing before 2027, and these are some of the issues that were raised in the report. We've got undrawn facilities of around AUD 1.9 billion. We've got around AUD 1 billion worth of balance sheet capacity. We sit comfortably within our ratings, metrics. The business, is performing well, and we've got strong recontracting demand from our customers, so, we beg to differ.
Chairman, the next question is in relation to the STI incentive. It has multiple parts, and it includes a statement. Chairman. And the question is from Rodney Forrest. "Chairman, I represent a charity, and we see APA as one of the strongest business models on the ASX, a true tolling operation monopoly. Yet I challenge interest rates are why APA is at a ten-year low, but our EBITDA is two times larger than ten years. And so maybe I ask, do our incentives create distortion in the market? USA comps, for instance, Kinder Williams are on higher multiples and use ROIC for both cash and stock bonus. We only use ROIC for stock. Our bonuses are 20% weighted to EBITDA, which will push us to make more M&A, which we do not have this KPI in the past.
EBITDA, according to Charlie Munger, is rubbish earnings. We cannot use the scrip for any more M&A, as our EV/EBITDA multiple is the lowest in history. It is near worthless. So my question, Chairman, why are we using EBITDA for our STI incentive? EBITDA is only good for bankers, not business owners. Why not change our STI away from EBITDA?
Yeah, so EBIT, obviously, there's a bunch of people in the room. EBITDA is what Nicole is referring to there. Look, what measures we use for our STI is a matter of ongoing discussion and engagement, and sometimes debate with our security holders. So the two in the short term incentive, those two kind of key financial measures we use in that regard are EBITDA and free cash flow. We've talked ad nauseam to our securities holders around that. They're relatively small components of what we do because from in a short-term sense our business is largely contracted over the long term. There's not that much variation from year to year, and we really want management to be focused on the long term because this is a long-term capital intensive business.
So, look, at this point, we continue to leave EBITDA and free cash flow. The conclusion out of the discussions with our security holders is they want those there, they see them as appropriate, and it's just a question of at what level we have them.
Chairman, the next question also comes from Rodney Forrest and involves a statement and multiple parts. Given APA has globally leading 60% EBITDA margins with largely unregulated capacity returns, it is a highly attractive franchise. A question for both Adam and yourself, please: In your conversations with investment bankers, analysts, and international peers, what appetite do you think the market has for consolidation more broadly in the energy sector? This is given the multiples are so low and neglect is so high, and Kinder in USA has spoken about M&A.
As my old boss, Kerr Neilson, would say, "Look left when people look right, and this is where you make money." Now, the reason I ask this is we only have to go back to 2018, where CK Infrastructure bid AUD 11 for a share for APA, when the share price at the time was higher than AUD 8.27, but as a multiple of 16 times. Today, the consensus forward multiple is 10.5 times, implying a near 40% discount on the multiple. Does consolidation just seem inevitable, and the potential for APA to be delisted from the ASX if we do nothing?
I've done enough talking for a while, so I'll let Adam have the opportunity to answer.
Thank you, Michael. The way I would respond to that, firstly, I think Michael's well covered the reason for the share price being where it is, and from a management perspective and from a board perspective, we're focused on what we can control. The demand for gas, I think, is undisputed. The Future Gas Strategy, the ACCC, AEMO, and our customers, in particular, are very much talking about the fact that there is significant growth there for us. But as Michael put forward with that slide earlier today, we also see significant growth in areas such as electricity transmission, contracted power generation, and future fuels. So the future ahead of us is very bright.
What we need to do is remain very focused on investing our capital in those markets where we can generate the best returns and deliver the best outcomes for our people, for our investors, for our customers, and our consumers and communities. And with that regard, we think that we have got a very good strategy, and the market will be what the market will be.
Chairman, the final question from the platform comes from Peter Calario. Earlier, you mentioned a study from the CSIRO. Who paid for or sponsored that study?
I'm not aware of the answer to that.
My understanding. Yeah, my understanding with that study was that it was a joint study with the two universities that Michael spoke to earlier and another scientific agency. So it was a group study that was led by them. I'm not aware of any direct sponsorship in that.
All right, and if we can go-
There are no further questions from the platform. We will now go to the phones. Operator, are there any questions on the phones?
Chair, we have a question from Choon Kiat Tan. Please go ahead.
Adam, yeah, thanks for, you know, all your insights. I mean, really, I think we have a 10-year low share price. We have a record high distribution. Market is, you know, really not giving APA any credit for anything. Or in fact, the market is saying that, "Hey, look, you know, I think there's problems." But from the way I hear from Adam through the final results, from the way I hear from the chairman today, you know, there are opportunities, plenty of opportunities. But the thing is this: with a sinking share price, clearly there is lack of confidence in APA share price. So inevitably, the cost of equity has actually gone up. I don't know, you know, maybe the cost of debt could have actually gone up.
The conflicting signals from the federal government, you know, wanting gas as one of the transition energy, but not including it under the Capacity Investment Scheme... So, I mean, back to my questions earlier, you know, obviously, being a key infrastructure player, investing a lot of money into this country's, you know, pipeline infrastructure, delivering, the gas, where is it actually heading, you know? I think your board would have modeling that actually goes into the next five, 10, 20 years.
I just wanna get some assurance, apart from the sinking share price, that delivering to us as shareholders what is actually critical distribution in the foreseeable future, would it be actually affected by all these conflicting signals, or are we still going to, you know, get some consistent growth, albeit, like you said, you know, slower growth because you are investing in your precious capital into, you know, attractive opportunities? That, that's my question.
Yeah. Look, thank you for your question. The overall objective, I would say, is to try and keep growing the distributions, but we do need to be mindful in doing that, and that's why we slowed the rate of growth. We would like to think that that's going to continue into the future, and what we will continually re-look at and, you know, look at, is the balance between the growth opportunities that we have ahead of us, and we intend to invest... We're trying to do a lot in the resource sector. That will be, a lot of that will end up as contracted, long-term contracted assets that meet our required rates of return.
And, while, you know, we need to plow our money back into the business, and so we need to keep the distributions at a sensible level longer term. And as I mentioned, it is a long-term business. This is all about being able to keep that moving. All right, are there any other questions?
Operator, are there any further questions from the phones?
There are no further phone questions for this item of business.
Thank you for those questions. Thank you, everybody. That was a long effort. All right, if we could move along, please.
One quick comment. Mr. Chairman, a 1,000 years ago, the Norwegian Vikings discovered Greenland. It was green, with still fossilized logs and stumps. Today, there's seven billion of us. We are living longer and healthier. So give yourselves... Oh, due to electricity and gas. So give yourselves a plus. Thank you.
Thank you very much. What a way to finish. And please come again next year. All right, that completes the business of the meeting. Look, before I close the meeting, I'd like to acknowledge one of our longest-serving executives, Ross Gersbach, who is down the front here. He's also a former director of APA. In fact, he started out as a director before joining the management team, and Ross is retiring from the business at the end of October. Ross has been instrumental in building APA into the business that it is today. And on behalf of the board, the management team, and all our security holders, let me say congratulations, Ross, on a great career, and thank you for your outstanding contribution to APA over many years.
Please note that voting will remain open until the conclusion of the five-minute window for webcast online participants. All polls will then automatically close. For those of you here in the room, please hand your voting card, if you haven't already done it, to a Link Market Services team member, so it can be found and counted. Thank you, everyone, for your attendance and your patience. I now declare this meeting closed, subject to finalization of the poll. Thank you.