There has been a lot of news flow this week as the country’s biggest energy utilities announce their profits and outlook, and the country’s biggest aluminium smelter obtained government funds to help it transition to 100 per cent renewables.
The highlights were:
– AGL results: They showed execution, reliability and cost control good, and the market likes that. Forward investment outlook poor. Now gas plants are showing up on the future investments list.
– Origin results: Execution, reliability and cost control good. Yanco Delta “challenging”. Capex forecast low. Octopus nearly earned a positive EBITDA. APLNG underlying cost position likely to gradually struggle in my view.
– Tomago. RIO gets the subsidy it wants just like every other time. In a game as old as the NEM itself, Rio threatens to close the smelter, whichever government is in office at the time initially refuses to help, then prostrates itself. The twist this time is that Snowy is going to provide the electricity rather than AGL. Snowy doesn’t have enough power to supply so it’s going to have to buy some. Initially it will, in my opinion, have to buy from AGL, Origin, or EnergyAustralia until it can get renewables built.
