On Anzac Day, over 30 chamber members made their way to Gladstone to experience this industrial hub for three days. We started out with an informal dinner at Auckland House, situated on a brand new riverside walk sponsored by the Port to contribute to the city’s liveability. Delicious freshly caught prawns and craft beer made the location very attractive, but absolutely unbeatable was the vibe amongst delegates! An incredible amount of networking going on for the next three days, amongst ourselves and with all the companies we met. The next morning, a bus took us to selected sites such as Orica, alpha HPA, or the University of Central Queensland. Geoffrey Kerr from TIQ did an incredible job putting it all together, making sure everyone was expecting us, everything was running on time, and we got the maximum value out of our trip. We drove past the impressive coal plant that was just receiving a delivery of coal from a 2km long train we saw arrive loaded and leave empty, past very tall grain towers and huge diesel tanks, through a lush green landscape and to the wharves where LNG is exported and ammonia imported within a stone’s throw of each other. Dane Linforth from the Gladstone Port Authority took the time to show us the potential future wharves and land reserved for future applications such as hydrogen liquefaction. We also got to see the land on which H2U together with German energy company RWE is planning to produce green ammonia to feed into neighboring explosives plant Orica - what an exciting project!
As the weather wasn’t going by the plan, we had to relocate the ferry cruise dinner to the University, but soon forgot the sights we were missing as we were enjoying dinner kindly sponsored by SMA. Some of our hosts of the day were joining as well, giving us an opportunity to go into more detail with eg Attilio Pigneri from H2U or Robert Williamson from alpha HPA. It was inspiring to have the local council, GEA, and TIQ at the same table and get a feel for how supportive everyone is about the energy transition!
Sunny Gladstone greeted us with fantastic coffee again the next morning, and Fortescue Future Industries kindly set a big chunk of time aside to show us their construction site where they are building a huge 2GW electrolyzer factory. Three of the delegates had traveled from Germany for this trip, they were delighted to see kangaroos on the paddocks just next to the construction site!
The GEA suppliers luncheon warmly welcomed our delegation and gave us an opportunity to present ourselves. Again, networking opportunities were absolutely amazing, getting to meet high-level representatives from Stanwell, DP Energy, FFI, Energy Estate, CS Energy, and H2U, and hearing from Sumitomo.
We finished off by visiting one of Germany’s hidden champions, REMA TipTop, on the way to the airport. Always astonishing to realize how big a role those companies play.
We left with a fantastic impression of a town never tiring to reinvent itself, full of motivation, ideas, and inspiration. Good luck for the future, Gladstone - we can’t wait to come back and watch the progress!
You can access all images of the delegation here.