Equus Energy signs a 10-year gas deal with Alcoa for ~50 TJ/d, securing a foundation customer and US$30M in FEED funding as the WA project moves toward FID.
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Equus Energy (ASX: EQU) has signed a binding 10-year Gas Sales Agreement with Alcoa of Australia, locking in the aluminium producer as the foundation domestic buyer for its offshore Equus gas project. The deal covers roughly 50 terajoules per day from start-up, about 182 petajoules over the contract term, or around 5% of Western Australia's domestic gas market, the company said.
The agreement also includes a broader funding arrangement. Alcoa will provide up to US$30 million to support front-end engineering design (FEED) and push the project toward a final investment decision. Equus said pre-FEED work confirmed a technically feasible tie-back development using existing North West Shelf infrastructure, a plan meant to cut costs and speed up the timeline.
Alcoa is WA's largest domestic gas user. Its commitment gives Equus a long-term anchor customer and satisfies the project's domestic gas supply obligation under the state's Domestic Gas Reservation Policy. That clears a regulatory hurdle while Equus pursues both local sales and LNG exports into Asia.
“The execution of this major GSA with Alcoa demonstrates the strategic importance of the Equus gas project as a large, proven, and vital gas resource that can meet the shortfalls in WA’s domestic market and backfill spare LNG capacity on the North West Shelf,” managing director Will Barker said. He added that with 100% ownership of the only independent multi-trillion-cubic-feet gas resource on the shelf, the focus is now on project partnering and commercialisation.
Equus owns the project outright and said the material assumptions behind its contingent resource estimates remain unchanged. The next step is to secure additional partners and move toward FID.
For broader stock market analysis, the deal highlights how mid-tier gas developers are using long-term offtake agreements to de-risk large capital projects in a market where domestic supply shortfalls are growing.
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