{"id":390936,"date":"2026-04-21T20:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/390936\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T20:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:02:08","slug":"australian-company-plans-3b-lignite-to-fertiliser-plant-in-southland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/390936\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian company plans $3b lignite-to-fertiliser plant in Southland"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Liming<\/p>\n

\nFile photo. The company says it could deliver 1.5 million tonnes a year of urea fertiliser.
\nPhoto: 123RF\n<\/p>\n

An Australian-led project could see Southland’s lignite, or brown coal, reserves developed into urea fertiliser.<\/p>\n

Victorian Hydrogen is proposing a $3 billion plant to be located 30km northeast of Invercargill.<\/p>\n

The company says it could deliver 1.5 million tonnes a year of urea fertiliser, making New Zealand’s agricultural sector fully self sufficient.<\/p>\n

Urea created using natural gas is by far the most widely traded fertiliser in the world<\/a>, and while New Zealand produces some locally, the bulk is imported.<\/p>\n

Victorian Hydrogen’s plan would involve building a facility that can turn the Southland lignite into gas that can then be transformed into urea.<\/p>\n

Executive director Allan Blood said it was a proven technology that was already being used in a new plant commissioned in Zambia in late 2025.<\/p>\n

Blood expected the project, which would not involve accquiring farms, would seek fast track consenting approval.<\/p>\n

He said environmental managment would be central to the project’s design and the company was committed to mitigating greenhouse gas impacts before the projects proceeded.<\/p>\n

Former government owned company Solid Energy investigated a similar lignite-to-gas plan in Southland but dropped the idea in 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"File photo. The company says it could deliver 1.5 million tonnes a year of urea fertiliser. Photo: 123RF…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-390936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}