lateral ... as in thinking , page-9

Copy of post I made on the 7/12/09:

I just came accross the following quote on another site on another company posted on the 14 November. I just though it worth reposting here:

Quote:
OIL refiner Caltex has become a surprise potential exporter of Queensland's vast coal seam gas reserves, with new chief executive Julian Segal flagging a $500 million Brisbane liquefied natural gas plant as part of the company's potential growth plans.

Speaking at a lunch in Melbourne, Mr Segal said the company's Lytton refinery at the mouth of the Brisbane River would be a good place to host an LNG plant of a similar size to the smallest of five that are proposed at Gladstone.

"If you look on the east coast, a key ingredient for success (in LNG plants) is location, to have the infrastructure of the port," Mr Segal said. "We've got just the right facility at Lytton to do that."

He said the typical cost of a project would be about $500m, which was about the cost of LNG Limited's and Arrow Energy's planned 1.5 million tonnes a year plant at Gladstone. Other proponents Santos, BG Group, Origin and Shell are looking at projects with costs above $8 billion.



The LNG plans would fit into Caltex's business model, but were "theoretical" and at a very early stage, Mr Segal said.

He would not say whether Caltex was in discussions with any third parties over the plans.

Other options for growth being explored included getting into production of biofuels (which already make up about 10 per cent of Caltex's sales), domestic LNG for use in trucks, and underground coal gasification. He said the company had no ambitions to explore for or produce oil.

Mr Segal, who left fertiliser maker Incitec Pivot to take the helm of Caltex in July, said he wanted to expand the business outside its core areas of refining and marketing crude oil-based fuels.

"There are many opportunities available to Caltex as a middle-sized company in the Australian energy sector, which we will now investigate," said Mr Segal, who started his career with South Africa's Sasol, one of the world's leading proponents of coal gasification.

It is unclear whether Caltex's major shareholder, Chevron, supports the company's move into new fields.

But the appointment of Mr Segal, who is the first non-Chevron boss of Caltex in nine years and who previously substantially grew Incitec Pivot, indicated they were not just looking for someone to keep the refineries running. Mr Segal said a delay to an Australian Competition & Consumer Commission decision on Caltex's $300m bid for 302 Mobil service stations reflected the complexity of the deal, rather than being a bad omen on the way the decision would fall.
Unquote



Regards

SP