Origin Energy a direct 21st Century link to SAGASCO as major gas energy player in the South Australia market
Although only 21st Century memorabilia, such as fleet vehicles in the National Motor Museum at Birdwood (top inset), SAGASCO is directly linked to its successor Origin Energy, a major South Australia energy retailer and gas-fired energy producer through assets such as the Quarantine power station on Adelaide's Torrens Island.
Origin Energy as a major player gas energy producer and retailer in South Australia in the 21st Century had links with its 20th Century predecessor: the South Australian Gas Company (SAGASCO).
South Australian Gas Company, with a history in the colony/state from 1861, was a major gas manufacturer in the 20th Century before it switched to bring a being a natural gas supplier after the Cooper Basin discoveries. In 1988, the South Australian Gas Company merged with the South Australian Oil & Gas Corporation to form SAGASCO Holdings Group that, in 1993, became an energy subsidiary of Boral Limited.
In 2000, Boral shareholders approved the demerger of the energy business from the building and construction materials business. The demerged energy business became Sydney-based Origin Energy that included SAGASCO.
Origin began rapidly extending its national and international gas energy structure. This included building and commissioning the SEA (South East Gas) Pipeline in 2004, linking the Victorian and South Australian gas markets
After the government’s Electricity Trust of South Australia was privatised in 1996, Origin entered the state’s electricity retail market, holding a 27.3% share behind AGL, with 37.9%, in 2021.
Origin was also a player in the wider South Australian gas market as operator of the Quarantine and Ladbroke Grove power stations (among an array nationally).
Quarantine power station, a gas-powered electricity generator, was at the opposite north end of Torrens Island, in Adelaide’s northwest, from AGL Energy’s Torrens Island and Barker Inlet power stations. Configured from 2002 as a peaking power plant, it had 224MW (megawatts) capacity produced by open-cycle gas turbines. It was expanded in 2007 by the addition of a 120MW General Electric Frame 9E gas turbine set. The power station was fuelled by natural gas, delivered by the EPIC energy and SEA Gas pipeline.
Ladbroke Grove gas-fired power station was built in 2000 by Boral Ltd at Monbulla near Penola in the Limestone Coast region of South Australia. Its original a generating capacity of 40MW was doubled to 80MW and it was used as a peaking power plant, fuelled by the SEA Gas pipeline.
