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Discover the Engine Room of Industry

The Gladstone Region is home to a thriving 21st Century industrial base served by one of Australia’s busiest ports, the Port of Gladstone.  A major industrial cluster, where economic competitiveness is balanced with steadily improving environmental performance, Gladstone’s development potential is underpinned by the 22,000 hectare Gladstone State Development Area, which offers a range of development-ready sites, established infrastructure and growing possibilities for economic development to drive the region’s sustainable growth.  And with recent and continuing investment in the LNG industry, which is expected to play an increasingly important role in global energy markets over coming years, the Gladstone Region’s strong industrial growth looks set to continue.

Gladstone

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Major industry in Gladstone is supported by the region’s thriving and world-class engineering, construction and manufacturing sectors while the region’s traditional agricultural base in cattle farming and horticultural production, continues to underpin the Gladstone Region’s economic base. 

  • The Gladstone Port is Queensland’s largest multi-commodity port, handling more than 83 million tonnes of cargo annually. It is the world’s fifth largest coal export port and the fourth largest port in Australia.
  • Queensland Alumina Ltd is recongnised as one of the world’s largest alumina refineries. The production of alumina, a white powder, is the intermediate stage between mining the ore of bauxite and producing the metal, aluminium.
  • Rio Tinto Alcan Yarwun (RTAY) is the first greenfield refinery to be constructed in Australia for over two decades. RTAY represents Rio Tinto Alcan’s first 100 per cent owned and operated alumina refinery and contributes significantly to the major aluminium industry resources of RTA. The world-class refinery incorporates leading edge technology and environmental design features.
  • Boyne Smelters Ltd (BSL) is Australia’s largest aluminium smelter. The plant is currently undergoing significant modernisation with the re-building of Carbon Baking Furnace 3 and the construction of a new Carbon Baking Furnace 4 to upgraded technology. The smelter uses alumina produced by the Queensland Alumina Limited refinery to complete the third stage of the aluminium production process.
  • Cement Australia Gladstone is the largest cement plant in Australia and utilises state of the art technology. The plant is Australia’s most efficient and is the leading environmental performer in the industry, paving the way for lucrative business opportunities in the Asia Pacific area.

  • Orica Australia operates a 9,000 tonnes a year chlor-alkali plant, a 590,000 tonnes a year technical grade ammonium nitrate plant as well as an 80,000 tonnes a year sodium cyanide plant. The complex is located on the Yarwun Industrial Estate, 10 kilometres from Gladstone’s city centre.

  • NRG Gladstone Power Station is Queensland’s largest with a generating capacity of 1,680 megawatts. The station uses around four million tonnes of coal each year being railed from coalfields in Central Queensland.

  • The Gladstone Area Water Board owns and operates Awoonga Dam on the Boyne River, which supplies raw and treated water to industrial customers and the Local Government of Gladstone Regional Council by pipeline from Lake Awoonga.

  • Queensland Energy Resources (QER) has a small open-cut oil shale mine and a recently-constructed small-scale technology demonstration plant to showcase the reliability and performance of Paraho IITM technology to community and stakeholders.
  • Established in the early 1960’s, Dawson Mine is one of the oldest mines in production in Central Queensland and is operated by Anglo American Metallurgical Coal Pty Ltd.  Located in Moura, Dawson Mine produces approximately seven million tonnes of coking, soft coking and thermal coal each year.
  • Anglo Coal Australia Callide Mine located in Biloela, is a leading Queensland domestic coal producer providing low sulphur, sub bituminous thermal coal primarily for domestic power generation. The mine produces approximately 9.5 million tonnes of saleable coal per year.
  • Peabody Energy’s Baralaba Mine began production in 2006 and produces about 600,000 tons of thermal coal annually with PCI properties that is shipped to Japan through the Port of Gladstone.
  • Queensland Nitrates Pty Ltd commenced operations in January 2001, developing a fully integrated ammonium nitrate plant near Moura. It produces 185,000 tonnes of explosive grade ammonium nitrate for use in the production of explosives for the mining industry. 
  • The Cracow Mining Joint Venture is 150km south-west of Biloela and produces approximately 100,000 ounces of gold per year.  It is an underground mine with a single decline entry.
  • CS Energy owns and operates the Callide Power Station which generates 1720 megawatts (MW) of electricity to assist regional industry as well as the national electricity grid.  The power station is also home to the Callide Oxyfuel Project, a world-first demonstration of how we can adapt our existing coal-fired power stations to produce almost zero emission electricity.
  • SunWater has been Queensland’s largest bulk water infrastructure developer and manager for more than 80 years.  Callide dam is one of the companies $7b water infrastructure networks and is the primary water source for the region’s agricultural, industrial and urban sectors.