Export Finance Australia provides AUD 100 million loan to QGIF Swan Bidco (Pacific Energy)

Mechanism

Export Finance Australia — the Commonwealth's export credit agency — signed a AUD 100 million loan facility to QGIF Swan Bidco Pty Ltd, listed in EFA's official FY2024/25 transaction register (transactions signed 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025, published 2 September 2025) at AUD 100.00 million, industry "Mining," goods/services "Other Electricity Generation," export destination Australia. QGIF Swan Bidco is the special-purpose vehicle QIC's Global Infrastructure Fund (QGIF) used in 2019-20 to acquire ASX-listed Pacific Energy Limited, a build-own-operate off-grid power generation company that supplies electricity to mining sites and remote townships, predominantly in Western Australia. The loan sits on EFA's Commercial Account, which recorded 468 transactions worth AUD 1.5 billion across the same financial year at a weighted-average margin of ~2.05% and tenor of ~5.06 years register-wide; EFA's disclosure does not break out the specific rate or tenor of the QGIF Swan Bidco facility.

QIC itself (via its infrastructure funds QGIF I and QGIF II) has drawn separate government-backed capital into the same platform: the Clean Energy Finance Corporation committed AUD 70 million in equity to QGIF II in January 2026, on top of an earlier AUD 72 million CEFC commitment to QGIF I (see 2026-01-19-australia-cefc-qic-global-infrastructure-fund-ii). This EFA loan is a separate, debt-side facility to the Pacific Energy holding entity specifically, rather than an equity commitment to the fund vehicle.

Downstream implications

• Extends the pattern of Australian government-backed capital (EFA debt,

CEFC equity) flowing into QIC-managed infrastructure platforms that underpin mining-sector power generation — a domestically-focused but state-financed segment of critical minerals/mining-adjacent infrastructure.

• EFA's export-credit mandate is nominally outbound-trade-focused; a loan to

a domestic (Australia-only) off-grid power generator is a reminder that EFA's National Interest and Commercial Accounts also fund purely domestic strategic-infrastructure beneficiaries.

Open questions

• Whether the loan proceeds finance new off-grid generation capacity

(potential mine-site expansion) or refinance existing Pacific Energy debt.

• Whether any of the underlying mine-site power contracts serve

critical-minerals producers, which would tie this financing more directly into the critical-minerals supply chain rather than general mining services.