Victorian Hydrogen’s plan would involve building a facility that can turn the Southland lignite into gas that can then be transformed into urea.
Executive director Allan Blood said it was a proven technology already being used in a new plant commissioned in Zambia in late 2025.
Blood expected the project, which would not involve acquiring farms, would seek fast-track consenting approval.
He said environmental management would be central to the project’s design, and the company was committed to mitigating greenhouse gas impacts before the project proceeded.
Former government-owned company Solid Energy investigated a similar lignite-to-gas plan in Southland but dropped the idea in 2013.
Greenpeace condemned the proposal, saying it would worsen climate change and further contaminate drinking water.
Greenpeace agriculture spokesperson Will Appelbe said a coal‑to‑fertiliser plant would “add to a toxic cocktail of pollution that is cooking the climate, contaminating drinking water, and wrecking lakes and rivers across the country”.
Greenpeace argued that synthetic nitrogen fertiliser produced more greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand than the domestic aviation sector and was a major contributor to freshwater nitrate contamination.
Appelbe said the project would “induce demand and bake in a reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertiliser for decades, forcing New Zealand farmers to stay trapped in a system that doesn’t work for people, animals, or the planet.”
- RNZ
