The early construction work on the Port Kembla Gas Terminal is under way, as the company behind it signed a long-term lease of the harbourside location.
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The project is now solely in the hands of billionaire Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest's Squadron Energy, after it bought out two Japanese partners last month.
Squadron Energy CEO Stuart Johnston said the change meant the company could move forward at a faster pace on the project.
"We own a hundred per cent of the project now," Mr Johnston said.
"They [the Japanese companies] are really good guys to work with but it's just they're a little bit slower on the decision-making because the nature of the companies.
"What we're able to do now is go pretty quickly through the gears to get this thing built."
On Friday Squadron announced the signing of a 25-year lease of the site, which includes part of the coal terminal land, with NSW Ports.
Mr Johnston said it was a 10-year lease, with three further options of five years, which signalled to prospective customers that "the project is real and it's happening".
A further indication of that is the fact construction work on the site in the outer harbour is now under way.
"What we got is a deed of surrender that sits under where Port Kembla Coal is giving up some of the ground they weren't using," Mr Johnston said.
"So we've got people already starting work now in the early stages of construction for the new facility.
"What what you've got to do is separate the old coal terminal works from what will become our site, so we start that work now.
"That will take a few months, work like water pipelines utilities, fences - all kinds of stuff that you've got to separate out first.
"That gets done and then you start the major construction."
That construction work will include Wollongong firms and employees, Mr Johnston said, and there will be an ongoing local presence with office staff based in the Illawarra rather than in Sydney.
There could also be more jobs coming for the region, with Squadron looking to build a LNG-hydrogen dual fuel power station in the Illawarra.
"We're looking at a few sites," he said.
"There are several prospective sites we're working up from an engineering standpoint and we're talking to the federal government about that.
"This is roughly 12 months behind the gas terminal. Obviously you can't finish a design on that until you know exactly how the gas terminal's going to be configured."
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Glen Humphries
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
