Origin Energy

Origin Energy Ltd

Type	Public
Traded as	ASX: ORG
Industry	Energy
Founded	February 2000, but parts of the business date from the 20th century
Headquarters	Australia Square Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Key people	Frank Calabria (CEO) (MD)
Products	Electricity, natural gas, solar panels, LPG, hot water, heating and cooling, electric vehicle charging
Revenue	A$11,550 million (2015,)
Net income	A$760 million after tax (2013)
Number of employees	6,000 (2016)[1]
Website	Origin Energy Origin LPG

Origin is an Australian energy company headquartered in Sydney.

History

Origin Energy was formed in February 2000, as a result of a demerger from the Australian conglomerate Boral Limited, in which the energy business was removed from the building and construction materials business to form the new company.^[2]

Between 2001 and 2002, Origin acquired the Victorian electricity network suppliers Powercor and CitiPower. In 2004, the SEA Gas Pipeline was completed and commissioned, which served to link the Victorian and South Australian gas markets. During this time, Origin obtained 50% interest in the Kupe Gas Field, and managed to obtain Edison Mission Energy's 51.4% interest in New Zealand's Contact Energy.^[2] Origin sold its 53% shareholding in Contact Energy to the market in 2015.^[3]

On 27 November 2006 the Queensland Government announced the sale of Sun Retail Pty Ltd, the former retailing arm of Energex to Origin for $1.202 billion. Sun Retail included some 840,000 residential, commercial and industrial electricity customer accounts and 55,000 LPG customers.^[4]

On 15 December 2010, Origin Energy announced that it would purchase the retail divisions of Country Energy and Integral Energy from the Government of New South Wales, at a total cost of A$3,250 million,^[5] as well as entering a GenTrader agreement with Eraring Energy (in which Origin supplies fuel, pays certain charges, and can dispatch and sell electricity output, while Eraring Energy owns, operates and maintains the power stations). The transaction was completed on 1 March 2011.^[6]

Core business

Uranquinty Power Station (Natural gas)

Natural gas exploration and production

The company has a diverse exploration portfolio, which includes the Bowen, Surat and Cooper / Eromanga basins in Central Australia, the Otway and Bass basins in Southern Australia, as well as interests in the Perth Basin and Browse Basin in Western Australia, and the Bonaparte Basin in the Northern Territory. Outside Australia, Origin operates the Kupe gas field in the Taranaki Basin of New Zealand. The company also holds interests in New Zealand’s Canterbury Basin, and further afield, has interests in permits in Botswana and Vietnam.

Australia Pacific LNG, Queensland, Australia

As one of the largest holders of gas reserves in eastern Australia, and a leading gas producer. Alongside Origin’s domestic gas operations, the company is working with ConocoPhillips and Sinopec in the Australia Pacific LNG joint venture to deliver Australia's largest coal seam gas (CSG) to liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project in Queensland.

The Project consists of three key parts:^[7]

1. Further development of Australia Pacific LNG’s gas fields in the Surat and Bowen Basins in south-west and central Queensland.
2. Construction of a 530 km gas transmission pipeline from the gas fields to an LNG facility on Curtis Island off the coast of Gladstone.
3. Construction of an LNG facility on Curtis Island off the coast of Gladstone, with the first two gas production trains processing up to 9 million tonnes per annum.

Australia Pacific LNG remains on track for sustained LNG production from Train 1 from the first quarter of the 2016 financial year and from Train 2 in mid financial year 2016.^[8]

Energy retailing

As Australia's largest energy retailer, Origin has approximately 4.3 million customers, servicing both large energy customers and the residential and small business market. Product and service offerings include electricity, natural gas and LPG. Origin is also Australia’s leading provider of low-carbon products such as GreenPower, Green Gas and solar PV.

Electricity generation

Origin operates one of Australia's largest power generation portfolios with 6,010 MW of capacity. This represents approximately 13 per cent of power generation capacity in the National Electricity Market.^[9] As the largest owner and developer of natural gas-fired power generation in Australia, Origin holds a substantial generation portfolio. Power stations include Ladbroke Grove and Quarantine in South Australia, Uranquinty in New South Wales, Mortlake Power Station in Victoria, and in Queensland Darling Downs Power Station, Mount Stuart Power Station in Townsville and Roma Power Station. In New South Wales, Origin also owns the Eraring coal-fired power station and the Cullerin Range Wind Farm.^[10]

Renewable energy

Challicum Hills Wind Farm

Origin is active in the renewable energy arena. It has spent a number of years developing:

• Purchase contracts for the acquisition of electricity from Wind farms in South Australia and Victoria including the entire output produced by Pacific Hydro from the Challicum Hills wind farm located near Ararat and the Yambuk wind farm near Portland. Origin Energy is the largest buyer of wind energy in Australia.^[11] Origin does not hold any equity positions in Australian wind farms.
• A solar energy business using solar cell technology invented by a team led by Professor Andrew Blakers at The Australian National University.^[12] Origin Energy expected to be manufacturing its sliver cell technology for the Australian market by 2008.^[13]
• Geothermal power, a technology based on the conversion of heat sourced from deep, hot rocks into electricity. Origin's geothermal investment is via a minority shareholding stake in the Australian company Geodynamics.

Key executives

• Frank Calabria - Chief Executive Officer
• David Baldwin – Chief Executive Officer, Integrated Gas
• Jon Briskin – Executive General Manager, Origin Retail
• Andrew Clarke – Group General Counsel and Company Secretary
• Greg Jarvis – Executive General Manager, Energy Supply and Operations
• Tony Lucas – Executive General Manager, Future Energy and Business Development
• Carl McCamish – Executive General Manager, Technology, Risk, HSE and Transformation
• Sharon Ridgway – Executive General Manager, People and Culture
• Gary Mallett - Acting Chief Financial Officer
• Ben Bolot - Acting General Manager, Strategy and Development

^[14]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Origin Energy.

• Origin Energy - Official Site
• Origin LPG - Official LPG Site
• Boral Limited - Boral Website
• Solar cells wait for their day in the sun
• GE Energy, CH2M Hill to build power plant in Australia

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