A Western Australian gas company has shelved its plans to build a $3 billion fertiliser plant which would have provided three quarters of Australian food growers’ urea needs and will instead focus on producing electricity. Strike Energy has gas wells and exploration interests in the northern Perth Basin and brought its maiden natural gas project, Walyering, online in September 2023. But it was its plans to make 1.4 million tonnes of urea per annum from clean hydrogen and natural gas that attracted the interest of farmers. They are keen on a local supply of nitrogen which is essential for crop growth and development, but is currently entirely imported. Farmers hoped Strike’s Project Haber, proposed to be located west of Three Springs, would provide a local and more affordable source of urea for their crops. Strike Energy’s managing director Stuart Nicholls said while it still saw merit in domestic urea manufacturing, the company would instead move to developing a peaking power station. “Our ambitions to build a 1.4 million-tonne urea facility are ostensibly delayed for quite some time and will be subject only to being able to find additional gas resources and bring those to market.”
Effort redirected to peaking power plant Strike purchased farmland west of Three Springs for the urea plant and will now build the gas-powered peaking power plant at this location. The power plant proposes supply to the northern end of the South West Interconnected System (SWIS). Mr Nicholls said the company had struck a $153 million finance deal with Macquarie Bank and was confident it had the reserves of gas to support the power station’s modelled consumption. “We see this power station as being an integral part to the transition to low carbon energy across WA,” he said. “This is a peaking gas power station which is designed to support and firm renewable energy so that you don’t suffer from intermittency or lack of reliability that the weather can throw up. Strike has submitted an application to the Australian Electricity Market Operator (AEMO) for the award of capacity credits and network access. If granted, Mr Nicholls said the 85-megawatt peaking power station would be operational by October 2026. In 2022 Strike Energy was granted major project status by the federal government for Project Haber, a label designed to streamline approvals, project support, and coordination. On Thursday, Strike began drilling its Erregulla deep well, a 50-50 joint venture with Hancock Prospecting. Mr Nicholls said results from this were expected within 30 to 40 days.
