Latest / Best of Business / Jamie Mackay: The Country host on Victorian Hydrogen proposing a $3 billion urea plant in Southland

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Jamie Mackay: The Country host on Victorian Hydrogen proposing a $3 billion urea plant in Southland · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks Be follow
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  Speaker 1: The Rural Reports with Farmlands get advice and support growing
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  Speaker 1: what really matters.
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  Speaker 2: Jamie mckaye, hosts of the Countries with Us.
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  Speaker 3: Hello, Jamie good I Heather. I think we've got better
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  Speaker 3: things to spend money on than sale GP.
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  Speaker 2: Well like wolf fertilizer plant.
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  Speaker 3: Well you're like a fertilizer.
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  Speaker 2: Does it need taxpayer money?
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  Speaker 3: No? I wouldn't think so. No, it shouldn't get taxpayer money.
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  Speaker 3: But in all seriousness, I know that the sale GP
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  Speaker 3: is a big tourism winner for Auckland, but I guess
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  Speaker 3: you've got to cut your cloth to suit in these
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  Speaker 3: tough times. Look, this is quite an exciting story. I
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  Speaker 3: don't know if it will sail as so to speak.
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  Speaker 3: But there's an Aussie or a Victorian based Aussie company
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  Speaker 3: called Victorian hydrogenen and Ammonia Industries Limited, and they want
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  Speaker 3: to build a three billion dollar UREA plant down in Southland.
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  Speaker 3: They're going to make one point five million tons a
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  Speaker 3: year of urea fertilized, so that'll use three million tons
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  Speaker 3: a year of lignite down in South and they've got
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  Speaker 3: heaps of it down there. But here's the key one.
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  Speaker 3: It would make New Zealand's agricultural sector fully self sufficient
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  Speaker 3: and nitrogen fertilizer. Remembering nitrogen fertilizer grows half the food
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  Speaker 3: in the world and a third of the nitrog of
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  Speaker 3: world's urea at the moment, or nitrogen fertilizers coming through
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  Speaker 3: the Strait of Hormuz, so we do really have some
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  Speaker 3: issues there. So they're going to burn the lignite, make
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  Speaker 3: it into gas and then make it into urea. They're
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  Speaker 3: going to build a factory that will hopefully be carbon
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  Speaker 3: neutral or carbon positive. Even I spoke to the executive
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  Speaker 3: director Alan Blood on the show today. They're seeking fast
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  Speaker 3: track consenting from Tua Shane Jones. He'll love this obviously,
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  Speaker 3: digging it up and damming it up as real his thing.
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  Speaker 3: They're committed to mitigating greenhouse gas impacts. As I said, now,
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  Speaker 3: there is a wee bit of history around this. Solid
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  Speaker 3: Energy investigated a similar lignite to gas plan in Southland
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  Speaker 3: way back in twenty thirteen but dropped it. Now. The
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  Speaker 3: reason he's doing this in New Zealand rather than Australia
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  Speaker 3: is because, in his words, the woke Victorian labor government
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  Speaker 3: blocked the coal to your Rea project. There is one
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  Speaker 3: up and running though in Zambia. It was commissioned in
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  Speaker 3: twenty twenty five, and apparently it's going great guns. Look, Heather,
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  Speaker 3: if they can make this thing carbon neutral and not
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  Speaker 3: have a detrimental effect on the environment, why wouldn't you
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  Speaker 3: do it? Why wouldn't you be in boots?
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  Speaker 2: And or do we know why Solid Energy dropped the plan?
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  Speaker 3: I had a bit of a debate with Winston on
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  Speaker 3: this one at lunchtime on my show, and he's got
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  Speaker 3: a better memory than me. He's got a memory like
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  Speaker 3: an elephant. He said, Solid Energy went broke. It's beyond
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  Speaker 3: my memories and that one. But anyhow, I'm not quite
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  Speaker 3: sure what happened there, But I guess the economics have
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  Speaker 3: changed as well.
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  Speaker 1: Heaven.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, look at with what's happening in the world
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  Speaker 3: at a moment. I think we've had a bit of
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  Speaker 3: a Eureka moment as a nation when it comes to
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  Speaker 3: being more self sufficient, more sustainable on fuel and fertilizer
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  Speaker 3: without either of them, to put it bluntly, were buggered.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah too, right, Hey, listen, thank you, Jamie, It's always
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  Speaker 2: good to talk to you. Appreciate it. Jamie Mackay hosts
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  Speaker 2: of the Country.
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