Last week's joint venture with AMP Henderson into Aquila's assets has provided Alinta with a national focus and a new funding partner willing to support its growth.

The deal will also shield the company against any adverse legislation change concerning the Dampier-to-Bunbury gas pipeline. The LPG earnings from the company's gas stripping deal with Wesfarmers generated $27 million EBITDA in 2002, the possible loss of which can now be diluted by earnings from a variety of other sectors.

The company has just raised around $200 million in a share placement in order to fulfil the first phase of its Aquila transaction. Macquarie Equities placed Aquila's 36 million shares in Alinta with institutions while the company itself issued an additional eight million shares, raising an additional $36 million in fresh equity.

The extra capital raised is expected to reduce the size of its proposed $160 million issue of reset preference shares, scheduled to proceed upon completion of the Aquila deal.

Alinta has also just announced the start of an extended electricity cogeneration project with Alcoa. The venture will see up to 10 power units being built to support Alumina refineries. Alcoa will use all of the steam output from the plants while Alinta will sell electricity into the retail market, providing electricity into the South-West Interconnected System.

The deal will put the company in a position to compete with the state-owned Western Power in the WA electricity market. Western Power will be allowed a limited return of fire from October when it can compete in the gas market for customers using more than one terajoule of gas per year.