The milestone would be marked with the opening of Origin Energy's Coal Seam Gas Plant at Spring Gully, premier Peter Beattie said yesterday.

Origin Energy is planning to build a base load power station, using gas from its Spring Gully project. Already the company has invested $A200 million in Spring Gully, drilling 42 gas wells and installing gas processing and water and gas pipelines.

Natural gas is now being delivered to Queensland customers through a new pipeline connection to Roma, 80km to the south of the project.

Queensland currently produces about 30 petajoules of coal seam gas a year, 30% of total gas production. Production in 1998 was two petajoules a year.