BP to expand Bulwer Island storage with government lease
The state is rushing through approvals for a decades-long lease of prime land near the Port of Brisbane to a global oil giant. plan to create a standalone Queensland oil industry.
Speaking on Sunday, Prime Minister David Crisafulli said the government would promise 35 years of security to BP by renewing the global fuel company’s long-term lease on Bulwer Island, allowing it to start work on more than 10 fuel storage tanks.
“Our talks with BP started earlier this year, and before that [fuel] “We wanted to give them a rental guarantee to invest in the crisis,” Crisafulli said.
“This will allow them to replace five idle fuel storage tanks and increase their capacity there by approximately 20 per cent, which is a big move.”
The company plans to add five more tanks in the medium term, bringing total capacity to 140 percent of existing stores, or about 103 million liters, the Prime Minister said.
BP country president Paul Auge said they expect to spend $100 million to restore the five existing tanks. Decommissioned in 2015 – With the aim of reopening by 2029.
“We’ll start working next year; we’re doing the engineering right now,” Auge said.
“Obviously we’re going to try to expedite that as much as possible with this news.”
While the company doesn’t have a timeline for building five additional tanks, Auge said the oil giant has “options we can already put on the table to build more tanks.”
“We’ve done a lot of work around the long-term strategy for these assets,” he said.
The Prime Minister said he wanted to open more drilling and refining operations in Queensland over the same medium to long-term period, which would increase the state’s “sovereignty” in the fuels space.
“We have to store, we have to drill, we have to refine, and again we have to control our own destiny,” he said.
“We don’t want to be at the begging end of a global supply chain and this is a very special moment – we can’t miss it.”
Crisafulli said he wanted Australia’s 30-day fuel reserves to be at least doubled by Queensland industry.
Private investors have already stepped forward in other recently supported fossil fuel projects, he said. Mining opportunities in Taroom TroughAbout 300 kilometers northwest of Brisbane.
While Crisafulli said on Sunday that the state provides security rather than funding In late April, the government promised $25 million To help develop renewable diesel at Ampol’s Lytton refinery, located across the river from BP’s Bulwer Island.
On Sunday, the prime minister also reiterated his call for the Albanian government to grant national interest exemptions to oil exploration activities. Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Preservation Take action for the Taroom Trough project.
“Until we eliminate the EPBC dead hand, the ability of the Taroom Trough to actually crack will be hampered,” Crisafulli said.
When asked about the upcoming Stafford by-election, the prime minister refused to comment but pointed to the government’s recently published ambulance ramp data.
But Queensland Primary Industries Minister Dale Last said the by-election would be a referendum on Steven Miles’ leadership of the Labor Party.
Finally, he said the opposition leader would remain “in the glass” unless there was a significant change in favor of Labor in the seat, which was held by Labor until former MP Jimmy Sullivan was suspended from the party.
“The pressure is back on Steven Miles. Now it’s up to him to deliver and if he doesn’t he’ll be walking on a short plank,” Last said.
Labor said voters were not interested in “slinging mud” as it reiterated its call for the state to repair beds it said were cut at Prince Charles Hospital.
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