Why do we exist?
Why do we exist?
Ok…I know that’s a pretty heavy question for this time of year when most of us are thinking about such important matters as the Melbourne cup, the looming Christmas break and how quickly the year has disappeared.
Nonetheless, I’d like to take a moment in this special edition of “Fuel for Thought” to reflect on our existence – or more specifically, QER’s existence.
Our company has been around for just over twenty years. The main reason QER was established was to help generate an Australian-made alternative to help secure Australia’s future transport fuel supplies.
Most people don’t realise how important transport fuel is to our quality of life. We used to make our own fuel in Australia and now most of it is imported. We continue to use more of it each year as the diesel consumption graph shows here. As you might have seen on the news recently, we only have around 20 days of fuel in reserve and sometimes even less.
Our critical industries – agriculture, mining, tourism, construction, defence and many others would grind to a halt if our fuel supply was disrupted. And we’d start seeing the impacts on our supermarket and pharmacy shelves within days.
At our facility here in Gladstone, QER has demonstrated that Queensland’s rich “kerogen” reserves can be a viable part of the solution – providing a source of high-quality fuel to help make Australia’s fuel future more secure. We continue to invest in the project and next year we are planning to build a $2M+ dryer pilot facility to demonstrate the drying technology we’ve developed to reduce emissions and improve energy efficiency.
We’re proud of our on-going contribution to our community and for helping secure Australia’s unique quality of life in the future. I reckon that’s a pretty good reason to exist, don’t you?