The integrated energy company today said it will also use the funds to construct a reverse osmosis water treatment plant to manage the water produced as part of the process of recovering CSM.

It said it decided to proceed following a successful six-month trial in which high quality water has been produced.

The $53 million investment is in addition to the $114 million expansion of Spring Gully announced last July and takes Origin’s total investment in Queensland to over $2 billion since 2000.

Chief operating officer Karen Moses said the additional investment showed Origin’s belief in the potential of CSM in Queensland.

“CSM already supplies the majority of Queensland’s gas requirements and has the potential to fuel gas-fired power generation with much lower greenhouse gas emissions than today’s coal-fired power plants,” she said.

Origin said the Spring Gully field is currently supplying Queensland Alumina in Gladstone, and supplying gas into New South Wales through a gas swap agreement.

Further expansion of the field will service new contracts with Incitec Pivot beginning in the second half of this year and will provide additional supply and flexibility for Origin’s own requirements, it said.

“In addition to this investment, Origin is currently assessing the feasibility of building baseload gas-fired power generation in Queensland,” the company said.

“Should a power station development be approved in the coming months, we would expect to announce further investment in CSM production facilities to gradually build our delivery capacity to service this major investment in energy infrastructure for Queensland.”

In February, Origin announced it had development approval for a 500MW gas-fired power station on the Braemar site in the Darling Downs region.