Gas will be used on fewer days each year. I plan our pipelines and storage for the days that remain, and say plainly which assets those days cannot support.
Gas infrastructure is not finished, but its job is changing. It will be used on fewer days, by fewer customers, for purposes that are harder to forecast. I think an owner serves its customers, investors and neighbours best by saying so early: by stating how long each asset can reasonably expect to be paid for, by pricing the winter days on which it is still essential and by leaving the assets and projects that no longer fit while someone else can still use them well.
Patrick Ellerdine
Company revenue
A$462m
Year to June 2026; transmission and storage
Gas transmission pipelines
1,140 km
Four pipelines in Victoria, South Australia and southern New South Wales
Gas carried in 2025–26
118 PJ
Down from 141 PJ in 2019–20
Leadership, seen by others.
Patrick opposed me on the timing of the second storage tank. He was right about the lenders, and I was right about what the wait would cost. What I value is that his board paper set out my argument as fairly as his own.
Meredith VosgraveChief executive, Corrandale Energy Infrastructure
He brings the committee the uncomfortable number first. The 2042 life for the western pipeline was not a popular paper, but it was the one we needed, and he had briefed the lenders before anyone asked him to.
Desmond HarkawayChair of the investment and risk committee, Corrandale Energy Infrastructure
On our board he asks the plain questions that protect members: when will this connect, who pays if it does not, and what have we promised the neighbours? He listens to members without technical backgrounds and changes his mind when they make a fair point.
Joanne PetrakisChair, Wanderlie Community Energy Co-operative
Selected leadership work
Renewing the western pipeline on a 2042 life instead of 2060
In 2023, foundation contracts covering 62 per cent of our western pipeline's capacity were due to expire in June 2024.
I decide our gas pipelines' future by the winter days customers will still pay to have them, not by the annual volumes they carried while demand was growing.
I am chief strategy officer of Corrandale Energy Infrastructure, a Melbourne-based owner of four gas transmission pipelines covering 1,140 kilometres in Victoria, South Australia and southern New South Wales, three compressor stations and a liquefied natural gas storage facility in western Victoria. An Australian superannuation fund and a Canadian pension investor have owned it since 2017. In the year to June 2026 we earned A$462 million revenue and A$288 million EBITDA, employed 380 people and carried 118 petajoules of gas, against 141 petajoules six years earlier. I report to the chief executive, lead fourteen colleagues and present to the board and its investment and risk committee without being a director.
Annual gas use in our region is falling as households, new homes and several industrial customers move to electricity. Yet AEMO's gas outlooks have repeatedly warned that southern states could run short on the coldest winter days later this decade, when heating demand and gas-fired generation peak together. Both statements are true. A pipeline carrying less gas each year can become more valuable on twenty or thirty days and less valuable on the rest. My work is to price that difference honestly, decide which assets it can support and say which ones it cannot.
Three decisions on this site show the trade-offs. We renewed our western pipeline's contracts on a 2042 economic life instead of 2060, which raised tariffs and cost us part of one industrial customer's load. We delayed a second storage tank by nine months until most of its capacity was contracted, and paid A$23 million more to build it. We also sold a battery project when the transmission upgrade it depended on slipped three years, accepting a loss to keep our commitments to its neighbours. None of these decisions made Corrandale larger; each made its remaining commitments easier to defend.
A shorter asset life, stated to customers first
Renewal terms on the 412-kilometre western pipeline recover its remaining capital by 2042. We retained 88 per cent of the expiring capacity at an average term of seven and a half years, and lost five terajoules a day of one manufacturer's contracted load.
Storage contracted before it was built
The second LNG tank reached its investment decision in August 2025 with 71 per cent of capacity contracted for ten winters. Waiting raised the cost estimate from A$268 million to A$291 million and moved first service to winter 2028.
A battery sold with its community commitments
We sold a 250-megawatt battery project for A$6.1 million plus A$4 million payable at connection, booking a A$3.5 million loss. The buyer assumed the neighbour agreement and a A$150,000 annual community fund in full.
Current focus
I am preparing the board's 2027 portfolio review, which will set an economic life for each pipeline and examine the eastern lateral, whose revenue depends most on one gas-fired power station.
Conversations I welcome
I would consider one non-executive role, initially about twenty days a year, with a regional energy, water or infrastructure business facing a long-life asset decision, subject to my chief executive's consent and a review of Corrandale's customers and counterparties.
The leadership record
Trusted with consequential decisions.
Formation
Bachelor of Chemical EngineeringCalvarley Institute of Technology · 1992
Master of Commerce (part-time)Calvarley Institute of Technology · 2006
I would consider one non-executive role, initially about twenty days a year, with a regional energy, water or infrastructure business facing a long-life asset decision, subject to my chief executive's consent and a review of Corrandale's customers and counterparties.
