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This is the first in a series of infrastructure upgrades the oil company will make to service the booming Bowen Basin minerals industry.
Work is due to start soon on a second 27 million litre tank at the Mackay terminal. That will be followed by a 15 million litre tank at Gladstone later this year. Both projects are subject to regulatory approvals and are due to be completed in 2011.
The three tanks, collectively costing more than $30 million, bring an extra 69 million litres storage to the region. That will reduce the number of ships Caltex has to send to the region and help ensure security of supply. The first Mackay tank reduces Caltex’s need to ship diesel to the terminal to about once a fortnight.
The infrastructure upgrades follow Caltex commissioning a $320 million diesel hydrotreating unit at its Lytton refinery last year. This unit doubled the refinery’s previous low-sulfur diesel production capacity. Previously the diesel produced at the refinery that did not go through the existing hydrotreating unit was sold overseas. It is illegal to sell high-sulfur diesel in Australia these days.
A Caltex spokesperson said the second hydrotreating plant meant the diesel that would normally be exported would instead be turned into low-sulfur diesel and sold locally. She said it also reduced Caltex’s low-sulfur diesel imports.
