Last September Origin shares were being traded at some $13/share, but as of yesterday they were just $5.42, as the company has joined the ranks of energy companies battered by the low oil price.
"It has been a tumultuous 12 months," Cairns said, describing 2015 as a "tipping point" in the long history of Origin and its ancestor companies.
However, he said the board was confident in the strategies it has recently enacted and it believed it was protected from the downside even at a $US23/barrel oil price.
"None of us at Origin take any satisfaction from where we have landed, with the recent announcement of the entitlement offer and reduction in dividend. As your chairman I acknowledge my responsibility and I can understand your frustration," Cairns said.
He said the board had believed that the gas-producing Origin would have been largely insulated from this decline, as the price of oil does not really affect the company until 2017, when Australia Pacific LNG is producing gas from two trains because the revenue it receive from the sale of LNG is linked to oil price.
It has been punished as much as any company, including those with a much higher level of exposure to the oil price.
Cairns also admitted that Origin could do better with its capital allocations, and so it has reduced its budgets by $730 million over 2016 and 2017 in response.
But he said the company was comfortable with its debt load, which was expected to peak at $12 billion before the recent capital raising.
Origin had toughed it out as long as possible because it was confident it could service the debt and pay it down as APLNG came online, until recently when the continued fall in $US oil prices in recent to the lowest levels in many years put pressure on future cash flow, and investors started losing confidence.
"Despite the fact that we could explain that we still made money at very low oil prices, we could not categorically give an assurance on how low oil prices would go, and what would be the impact on our business under such conditions," he said.
"And to be honest, given the volatility in the oil price, there was a higher chance of lower oil prices than we had contemplated previously."
With so much disruption to its future projects, the company decided to raise new capital, reduce risk and seek to restore investor confidence with its well-supported $4.7 billion initiative.
Cairn said APLNG would breakeven even at $US23/bbl, a price at the lowest end of the most bearish forecasts.
"If oil prices recover, Australia Pacific LNG will be producing strong positive cash flows, and we will be seen as having foresight to recognise the global importance of gas, the courage to take on such a massive investment, and the decisiveness to restore confidence in this investment," he said.
Managing director Grant King said Origin's debt would be reduced to less than $9 billion by mid-2017.
He said the first APLNG train was almost complete, and the first shipment to China was due "in the very near future".
