Origin Energy


Origin is an Australian listed public energy company with headquarters in Sydney. It is an Australian Stock Exchange publicly listed company.

History

Origin Energy was formed 18 February 2000, as a result of a demerger of the Australian conglomerate, Boral Limited, which saw the energy business formed as a new company, separate from the building and construction materials business. The SAGASCO business became part of Origin Energy as part of the demerger.
Between 2001 and 2002, Origin acquired a Victorian electricity retailer licence from distributors Powercor and CitiPower. In 2004, the SEAGas 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. Origin sold its 53% shareholding in Contact Energy to the market in 2015.
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.
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$3.25 billion, as well as entering a GenTrader agreement with Eraring Energy. The transaction was completed on 1 March 2011.
In 2013, Origin withdrew from the EGS investment in Geodynamics.
In 2018, Origin Energy was among 17 energy businesses that supported the launch of the Energy Charter, a global initiative aimed at bringing together all parts of the power supply chain to give customers more affordable and reliable energy.

Core business

Natural gas exploration and production

The company has a diverse exploration portfolio, which includes the Bowen and Surat Basins in Queensland, Browse Basin in Western Australia, and the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory. In 2017 Origin sold its subsidiary Lattice Energy and its conventional upstream oil and gas business to Beach Energy for $1,585 million.

Australia Pacific LNG, Queensland, Australia

Origin Energy is a major shareholder together with US giant ConocoPhillips and China's Sinopec in a joint venture of Australia Pacific LNG, that delivers Australia's largest coal seam gas to liquefied natural gas export project in Queensland.
The project consists of:
  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.
On 26 October 2017, gas producer and exporter APLNG entered into a sales agreement with Origin Energy, to supply 41 petajoules of gas under a 14-month contract starting 1 November, significantly boosting the supply of natural gas to the domestic east coast market. The contract brings the company's total commitment to 186 PJ for 2018, representing almost 30% of Australian east coast domestic gas market demand.

Energy retailing

As Australia's largest energy retailer, Origin has approximately 4.217 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.
Power stationStateLocationCapacity MWPeak/baseCommissionedFuelNotes
Darling Downs Power StationQueenslandDalby644Baseload2010coal seam gas from the Surat Basin-
Roma Power StationQueenslandRoma80Peaking1999Gasbuilt by Boral
Mortlake Power StationVictoria12 km west of Mortlake566Peaking2012Otway Basin gasLargest gas-fired power station in Victoria
Ladbroke Grove Power StationSouth AustraliaPenola80Peaking2000Natural gas
Quarantine Power StationSouth AustraliaTorrens Island224Peaking2000 Gas
Uranquinty Power StationNew South WalesUranquinty664Peaking2009Gas
Eraring Power StationNew South WalesDora Creek2880Baseload1982CoalAustralia's largest power station
Mount Stuart Power StationQueenslandStuart, Townsville423Peaking1999KeroseneNorth Queensland's largest power station. Open-cycle gas turbine
Shoalhaven Hydro Pump Storage SchemeNew South WalesKangaroo Valley and Bendeela240Peakingtwo pumped storage hydropower stations Water-
Osborne Cogeneration PlantSouth AustraliaOsborne180Baseload and peakjointly owned by Origin and ATCO Power
Worsley Cogeneration PlantWestern AustraliaWorsley60provides steam and power to the Worsley Alumina Refinery. Jointly owned by Origin and Verve Energy
Dandenong Cogeneration PlantVictoriaDandenong120gasIn partnership with Places Victoria, Australia's first urban distributed energy precinct
Bendigo and Ballarat Solar ParksVictoriaBallarat and Bendigo0.3002009Solargenerate a total of 710 MWh of power per year

Renewable energy

Origin is active in the renewable energy arena. It has spent a number of years developing:
In January 2017, The Guardian reported allegations of whistleblower Sally McDow, a former compliance manager at Origin. She claimed that the company had ignored various wellfield integrity problems, including failing to maintain hundreds of wells across Australia and New Zealand, failing to seal wells after their active lives and failing to report incidents internally or to the appropriate regulators. She also described a culture of bullying and harassment within the organisation. She said that she had advised the CEO at the time, and Grant King but that King did not want the incidents reported. He allegedly stated that the incidents could be used by opponents of the unconventional gas industry to delay or halt current or future projects.
A company spokesperson told The Guardian that Origin would “categorically deny the allegations that form the basis of Ms McDow’s most recent claim” and “vigorously defend the claim in court”.

Beetaloo Basin Controversy and Environmental Degradation

Origin Energy Australia is currently fracking for oil in Jingili
Country in the Beetaloo Sub-basin, Northern Territory, which will both contribute significantly the ongoing climate crisis, as well as directly impacting indigenous communities. A moratorium on fracking in the Northern Territory was lifted in April 2018 with approvals to commence granted to Origin in August 2019.. Origin Energy’s fracking activities have environmental effects both in terms of the fossil fuels
extracted, as well as destroying water sources and habitation within the area with in which the wells are established.
Drilling then began in October 2019, despite opposition from local residents and the region's Indigenous Traditional Owners, violating the human rights of indigenous peoples. Traditional owners have on previous occasions been “…forced out of an Origin Energy meeting in Tennant Creek…after they tried to present a letter with more than 200 signatures contesting plans to begin fracking” . In addition to this, indigenous peoples, such as “Ray Dixon, a Mudburra Traditonal Owner from Marlinja community near Elliott, said Origin had ignored and failed to consult traditional owners over its fracking plans” . This lack of consultation with traditional owners is in violation of the UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination which enshrines the right for indigenous peoples to have “free, prior and informed consent” to the use of their lands. This same lack of consent was also present within the infamous and more heavily publicised Adani, Carmichael coal mine.

Key executives https://www.originenergy.com.au/about/who-we-are/our-leadership-team.html