an australian energy company is cooperating with a south korean company to build a urea production
facility in south australia in the long run will this contribute to stabilizing the global urea
supply while serving up a win-win scenario for the two companies to talk about this more we have in
the studio chairman justin peters of lee creek energy limited from australia so chairman elite
peters welcome to the program thank you it's a pleasure to be here so for our viewers please
do tell us more about your company um lee creek energy is an australian publicly listed company
we'll be producing zero carbon nitrogen-based urea it's a fertilizer and we'll be producing that in
south australia for both domestic consumption and for export internationally and uh your
company recently chose to work with a south korean company dl enc previously known as terim to build
a urea production plant in australia so why did you choose this company to partner with and what's
so special about your project and when we first started this process it was interesting i'd never
heard of the company before and we went through a very extensive tender and selection process um
internationally looked at a lot of companies daily was one of those companies early in that process
it was very important for us as a company that whoever we selected
was going to be in there for the long haul not just simply someone who was going to build
and then hand over to us as an epc contractor normally would we wanted a company that was
going to work with us in the future and partner with us in other projects so we went through
that extensive process of selecting somebody that particular company ended up being daily
and that was approximately six months ago since that time we have spent a lot of time working
with them and their team and everything we've seen shows the professionalism this company has
and it's vindicated our decision to work with them and to work with them in the future what's special
about lee creek energy and the urea project we have is a very unusual project in that
we will be the only fertilizer urea fertilizer product in the world that is a closed-loop system
we like to call it an island in that we will be producing our own electricity at the site
we'll be producing our own gas at the site which is the feedstock for that urea
we'll be reducing our own ammonia and then our own urea that the end product
and most importantly for us as a company that takes carbon sequestration and our co2 footprint
very importantly is that we have the ability to be able to sequester any surplus co2 at the site so
it is a closed-loop system and we're very proud of the fact that we'll be the only one in the world
we'll be able to do that all right and how will the urea project fulfill the dynamics of the
industry in terms of supply and price around the world because um recently south korea has
had some problems with urea shortage because free x because of pre-export inspection imposed on the
supplies by china which has obviously slowed the shipping process and south korea relies heavily on
china supplies from china um korea is not the only country in the world that has this
particular problem you're finding internationally that gas prices are increasing quite dramatically
urea prices are linked to gas prices and that's because urea is made from gas
so you find that within europe at the moment prices have dramatically increased for their
gas prices and a lot of the urea manufacturers in europe are in care and maintenance because
they can't continue you find that particularly in china that their prices have doubled or tripled
but also more importantly china at the moment has restricted export of any nitrogen-based
fertilizer which is impacting on the prices if you have a look at america henry hub gas prices
in the us have increased almost to the triple point now where it's the highest it's been
and that all impacts on urea add to that covert which has actually created major problems in
transport around the world in delays in time and natural deliveries we find that the stresses and
the pressures on all countries actually looking for yuri at the moment is huge we're lucky in the
fact that we're actually able to roll what we do out in multiple locations so we believe that we'll
be able to actually help that process but once again we're only a small company we'll be looking
at manufacturing two to three million tonne a year of urea in the near term and that's only a small
part of that urea problem internationally but still contributing to us absolutely
and um what will this project do in terms of job creation both in australia and in south korea
you often hear that win-win word it's often overused it's not in this case and the reason
for that is regardless of who we select as a company to do the epc the build and construct
contract we have jobs in south australia and we have jobs in australia so from our point of
view from our government's point of view and from our company's point of view we will be
creating jobs in south australia the company we select for that epc process then has that same
opportunity to create jobs in their own country so for instance in korea we already have 170
people working on the project here a lot of the construction of the parts and the actual equipment
within a very large project will be manufactured here so that growth will actually occur here and
as we roll that out in the future that will also keep on happening here as well right and
what are your company's future plans uh we have a lot of plans um we would not be a one project
company so we are looking at other projects in australia at the moment but also in south america
we're also looking at other projects in the subcontinent and when i say looking we're
actually in advanced negotiations for those projects it's our intention because of the way
we're working with dalem that we would like to be able to take them along with us in those projects
and they'll come to fruition over the next six to twelve months
all right that was chairman peters from lee creek energy limited thank you
chairman for your insights we appreciate it it's been a pleasure thank you