Indigenous-led partnership to explore renewable diesel refinery in Western Australia
The Yamatji Southern Regional Corp., Australian strategy and design firm Veyter and its Canadian parent Agilitas Advisory Corp. have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore the development of a renewable diesel refinery near Geraldton in Western Australia’s Mid West.
The MOU was endorsed by the YSRC board, and concept-stage work has now begun as the parties progress the project through feasibility.
The plant would produce about 1.1 billion liters (more than 290 million gallons) of renewable diesel a year, equivalent to 20,000 barrels a day or approximately 4 percent of Australian diesel demand, from Western Australian canola and tallow.
Output would be sold domestically into mining, agriculture, transport, aviation and defense markets.
A facility of this scale would carry indicative capital expenditure of approximately AUD$2.5 billion (USD$1.78 billion), including the refinery, an integrated oilseed-crushing facility and associated infrastructure.
Confirming and refining that estimate will form part of the feasibility studies.
Any decision to build would follow front-end engineering design (FEED) and a final-investment decision (FID).
Australia’s diesel exposure
Diesel demand is growing at approximately 4 percent a year in sectors with limited alternatives, including mining, freight, rail, ports, construction and defense.
Australia remains heavily dependent on imported refined fuels, with approximately 80 percent of refined petroleum-product consumption met by imports.
At the same time, Australia exports feedstocks used to make renewable diesel.
Western Australia is Australia’s largest canola-producing state and accounts for around half of national production, worth about AUD$1.2 billion (USD$854.7 million) a year, and Australia is the world’s largest exporter of tallow.
Refining that feedstock domestically would keep more of the value onshore and reduce exposure to imported product, which the parties estimate carries a 2 percent to 8 percent premium at the wholesale level.
The Pilbara region alone consumes around 4 billion liters (1.06 billion gallons) of diesel a year.
“For Yamatji people, this is about moving beyond participation to genuine ownership of major industry on our country,” said YSRC CEO Luka Gray. “A project of this scale has the potential to create lasting economic opportunities for Yamatji people, Mid West growers and the broader region, while contributing to Australia’s domestic fuel security.”
Yamatji ownership
The project is being progressed on the basis of 51 percent First Nations majority ownership, giving Yamatji Traditional Owners a controlling interest in the project.
The remaining 49 percent interest would be held by Veyter.
The model is designed to ensure Yamatji people participate not simply as stakeholders or beneficiaries, but as majority owners of a major industrial project on Yamatji Country.
Why the Mid West
Oakajee Strategic Industrial Estate is being assessed as a potential location, alongside other sites within the Yamatji Nation Indigenous Land Use Agreements area.
Early estimates indicate approximately 4,000 construction jobs and approximately 400 direct operating positions, alongside additional demand for Mid West grain growers.
“Projects like this get financed when the feedstock, the land, the power and the offtake market are already in place,” said Ron Loborec, a managing partner of Agilitas Advisory. “In the Mid West they are. We have taken renewable fuel projects to FEED stage in Canada with First Nations partners holding the majority, and that experience is what we bring here.”
Policy settings
Australia currently has no commercial-scale renewable diesel production, and the project’s viability depends on commonwealth policy now under development, in particular the demand-side mechanism for low-carbon liquid fuels.
The parties consider that substantive demand-side certainty, alongside the Cleaner Fuels Program and the Future Made in Australia Innovation Fund for Low Carbon Liquid Fuels, is a precondition for FID.
Engagement will continue with the commonwealth and the WA government.
“Projects of this scale are rarely undone by the engineering,” said Andi Csontos, a strategy designer with Veyter. “They are successful as a result of the relationships, and by decisions taken with the right people in the room. Our work is designing how this partnership makes its decisions, so that Traditional Owners, the state, growers and future offtakers each have a genuine say from the start.”
Next steps
The parties have begun a staged 12-month program of work to complete a full pre-FEED study by the third quarter of next year.
Subject to those results and FID, FEED would be underway in 2027 with first production targeted for 2032.
The project is at an early development stage.
Further feasibility and stakeholder-engagement work will be undertaken over the coming months.
