Tennant Creek to Darwin Infrastructure Corridor

The Northern Territory Government is investigating an infrastructure corridor from Tennant Creek to Darwin.

The proposed corridor would provide for future services such as multiple high pressure pipelines and infrastructure to carry a range of products including gas, oil, hydrogen energy, water, digital communications and electricity.

Consolidating infrastructure services into one infrastructure corridor will minimise potential impacts on the land and landowners that could occur through development of multiple separate infrastructure corridors.

A prefeasibility study undertaken by CNC Project Management analysed engineering, social, environmental and infrastructure factors including ground conditions, rivers, habitat, vegetation, land use, cultural heritage, protected sacred sites, cost and current infrastructure such as buildings and roads.

The study identified a preliminary corridor alignment that will be further refined and developed during consultation with stakeholders and further detailed investigations, including a sacred site survey.

The project stages are described below:

• Step/stage 1 - Prefeasibility study.
  Land tenure type assessment.
• Step/stage 2 - Further investigations of the preliminary alignment to confirm constructability.
  Targeted discussions with key stakeholders including directly affected land owners and Native Title holders, AAPA, Land Councils.
• Step/stage 3 - Options review and identification of preferred alignment.
  Community engagement including directly and indirectly affected land owners, nearby businesses and pastoralists, peak bodies and industry representatives, Aboriginal Land Councils and AAPA.
• Government consideration of options.
• The following steps 4 - 7 are conditional on outcomes of previous steps:
  • Step/stage 4 - Securing the corridor for future infrastructure construction.
    Liaison and negotiation with directly affected landowners.
  • Step/stage 5 - Front End Engineering Design (FEED) for each pipeline/infrastructure.
    Targeted engagement with key stakeholders.
  • Step/stage 6 - Approvals for pipeline/infrastructure construction (e.g. Energy Pipelines Act).
    In accordance with legislative requirements.
  • Step/stage 7 - Construction of the pipeline/ infrastructure.
    Community engagement including directly and indirectly affected landowners, nearby businesses and pastoralists, peak bodies and industry representatives, Aboriginal Land Councils and AAPA.

The Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Logistics is undertaking work to develop a business model to deliver and manage the Tennant Creek to Darwin Infrastructure Corridor.

A business model analysis, led by consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and PwC’s Indigenous Consulting (PIC), will identify a preferred model that is consistent with the project’s vision to provide a consolidated, multi-user infrastructure corridor from Tennant Creek to Darwin.

The work by PwC and PIC will look at how the corridor could potentially be owned and operated.