Construction of Stage 5A, which comprises an additional 100 terajoules per day of full haul and 80TJ/d of part-haul capacity, is expected to start early next year, with gas delivery due in the first half of 2008.

Expected to cost $700 million, Stage 5A will be the first of a proposed three-part expansion of the pipeline.

This follows Dampier Bunbury Pipeline’s (DBP) decision in May that the most effective way of managing the Stage 5 expansion would be to do it progressively in three stages, rather than as one large single project.

The timing of Stages 5B and 5C depends on several issues, including the price and availability of gas to support new resource processing and power generation developments.

DBP executive chairman Stuart Hohnen said Stage 5A would be the second major expansion of the DBNGP since the consortium of owners took over the pipeline in

October 2004.

“Combined, the Stage 4 and Stage 5A expansions represent an investment of about

$1.13 billion in the pipeline,” he said.

“This is nearly three times the size of the financial commitment we gave to the State Government and the ACCC when we purchased the pipeline.

“The scale of this investment underlines the importance of securing long-term certainty of competitive gas supplies.”

As with the Stage 4 expansion, all the additional capacity will be fully contracted to new and existing shippers under long-term arrangements.

Hohnen said the $430 million Stage 4 expansion, comprising 217 km of looping and the installation of eight new compressors, was now 90% complete.

The DBNGP is majority owned by DUET (Diversified Utility and Energy Trusts), with Alcoa and Alinta being minority owners.