Southern Oil

The Queensland Government has successfully negotiated the attraction of Southern Oil’s $16 million Advanced Biofuels Pilot Plant to be built in Gladstone.

Southern Oil’s Advanced Biofuels Pilot Plant will be Australia’s first commercial-scale advanced biofuels production facility. One million litres of fuel are anticipated to be produced within the next three years. Advanced biofuels production will support the US Navy’s Great Green Fleet initiative.  The Australian Navy, Air New Zealand and Virgin Australia airlines are also investigating options for locally-produced aviation biofuel.

Southern Oil Refinery considered a number of options, including Western Australia and Victoria, when looking to establish a new waste lube oil refinery. Queensland was selected as the most viable market, largely due to its sustainable and export-oriented industrial biotechnology and bioproducts sector. The Queensland Government was also able to provide investment certainty and support.

Managing Director at Southern Oil Refinery, Tim Rose, said one of the main reasons that the business, which has been operating an interstate refinery since 2001, was persuaded to come to Queensland was because there were fewer barriers and more state government “enthusiasm”.

“In Queensland we were able to get land, which Trade & Investment Queensland helped us source, and we were able to buy in a State Development Area through the Queensland Government,” Mr Rose said.

“The State Development Area made it a lot easier in terms of getting the approvals and getting physically going and building the plant.

“It saved us about 18 months on a normal approval process that we would have had to go through in the other states.

“The simplicity and speed with which we could get our project up and running meant we could spend our money earlier on actually building the plant rather than on extended planning and approvals processes and all the costs of associated consultancies,” Mr Rose said.