Biggest Latrobe project in 25 years: The joint venture with Shell Gas and Power was the largest proposed resource project in the Latrobe Valley for about 25 years and will involve development of technology to capture and store underground carbon dioxide produced during the refining process.
10pc national daily fuel demand: Shell executive vice-president Peter de Wit said successful development of the agreed technologies would result in the project coming on line in the second half of the next decade. Upon completion, the plant was forecast to produce some’ 60,000 barrels a day of ultra-clean synthetic diesel fuel, equivalent to about 10 per cent of the nation’s daily fuel needs.
First commercial brown coal CO2 dump project: Victorian Mining Minister Theo Theophanous said it was the first major project in the Latrobe Valley, which has 500 years of brown coal reserves, that does not have power generation as its centrepiece and the first to propose commercial scale carbon capture and storage (CCS, CO2 dumps) of the emissions from brown coal.
Funds due by 2013: Monash Energy, a division of Anglo American, and the State Government have agreed to a series of milestones, such as commissioning a demonstration project by 2011 and commitment of funds to developing the commercial project by 2013, including CCS.
Vic carbon dump 20-30 years away: Theophanous said: "Without this project a commercial-sized CCS development in Victoria could be two or three decades away. It has been estimated that CCS could account for 25 per cent of abatement of the world’s carbon dioxide in the future."
The Australian Financial Review, 22/9/2006, p. 5