AGL Energy is believed to be progressing with the sale of its Newcastle gas storage facility, with bids already received.
APA and Queensland Investment Corporation, which owns the Iona Gas Storage facility in Victoria, are expected to line up for the asset, thought to be worth up to $400m.
APA is said to only need a fraction of the capacity of the asset, so may only be interested at a low price.
The gas storage facility at Tomago near Port Stephens is connected to the gas receiving station at Hexham, about 20km northwest of Newcastle, via a 5.5km pipeline.
It handles large quantities of liquefied natural gas to meet peak domestic gas market requirements over winter and is capable of processing up to 66,500 tonnes of LNG annually.
It includes an LNG storage tank capable of containing 30,000 tonnes or 63,000sq m of LNG, equivalent to 1.5 petajoules of natural gas.
The sale comes as AGL prepares to demerge its coal-fired power generation assets from its existing consumer business.
It last week posted a $2.1bn annual loss due to low power prices brought about by competition from renewable energy.
It also made a $2.7bn writedown in February linked to unprofitable wind farm transactions.
Elsewhere, a Nitro Software block trade is expected once the company reports its half-year results on August 24.
Nitro listed in 2019 at $1.80 per share, raising $110m with a $327m market value. Its share price is now at $3.63, with its market value at $726m.
Bell Potter and Morgan Stanley worked on the listing, so could be in line to sell down shares for its major shareholder.
The largest shareholders are the Starship Technology Fund and Battery Ventures along with Richard Wenzel and Sam Chandler.
When the business was listed, they retained 66 per cent.
Of that stake, 16.3 per cent was subject to escrow for six months after the listing, while 59.9 per cent was subject to escrow until December 2020.
Nitro Software develops commercial software used to create, edit, sign and secure PDF files and digital documents.
The company has over 650,000 business customers worldwide, and claims millions of users across the globe.
It comes as IDP Education’s major shareholder, Education Australia, is preparing to sell more than $1bn worth of stock in the company.
Bank of America is tipped to be working on the trade, scheduled to happen after IDP’s annual earnings result presentation on August 22.
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