Mayor John Horton, Councillor Chris Manchester, Cliff Priest (Australian Natural Gas), Pepe Bonaccordo (Pepes’ Ducks) Karen Kemp and Jim Wright from the Kruger Trust.
Natural Gas is on the agenda for Harden Murrumburrah
Karen Kemp has been working with key community and industry stakeholders within the Harden Shire to ascertain Harden’s requirements for natural gas. “It’s the chicken and the egg scenario, we need natural gas to attract more industry and on the other hand we need to have industry to attract natural gas.” Karen said.
Karen has been working closely with large industry organisations and Harden’s small to medium businesses to gauge annual usage and provide the gas authority with figures.
“To date our figures are looking promising, I have had several meetings with gas representatives and our figures based on current and proposed LPG usage are starting to trigger a strong response from the Australian Pipeline Authority and the Australian Natural Gas Networks.” She said.
“Acquiring natural gas to Harden has been on the drawing board for many years, but we just haven’t had the volumes to support the capital cost of infrastructure. We are surrounded by natural gas and we are the hole in the donut. The focus to get natural gas is stronger now than ever. We have a whole of community partnership with support from Council, industry and residents of Harden to make this happen.”
The next stage of the project is to ascertain costings to run the pipe and network into Harden and source a retailer.
Mayor John Horton said “We are in the early stages of planning, but when given the green light we want to be ready to go.”
