The issues at energy giant Orica’s Kooragang Island plant are having flow-on affects for the beverage manufacturing industry, with no CO2 being produced to make drinks fizz.
CO2 is used in beer and soft drinks to make the product fizzy, but the company has not produced any since June last year, the Newcastle Herald reports.
Initially the plant was closed for maintenance, but following a chemical spill on 8 August, operations have not resumed.
Hexavalent chromium fumes were leaked over 70 or more homes in Stockton according to Australian Mining.
Orica usually produces 36,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, and supplies to Australia’s biggest has gas, Air Liquide Australia and BOC.
The two gas companies then supply to beverage makers including Scweppes, as well as utilities and medical industries.
The Orica plant began a restart process on Tuesday but a spokeswoman told The Herald yesterday it could take up to three weeks for it to resume to full-production.
‘‘Yes, we were aware of the impacts on the companies that we sell (CO2) to,’’ she said
‘‘Our focus is on doing this safely.’’
In December Air Liquide informed customers it would give first priority of its CO2 supply to essential services such as potable water treatment, blood transport and medical gases.
Schweppes confirmed yesterday the Orica closure has impacted its production but hopes to be back at normal production levels by the end of January.
‘Over the past two months, there has been a shortage in the supply of CO2 to our largest East Coast manufacturing facilities, due to the closure of Orica’s plant at Kooragang Island, NSW, in August and then compounded in December by the planned closure of Origin Energy’s plant in Lang Lang, Victoria,’’ a statement said.
‘‘As a consequence of this shortage, we have not been able to produce the volume of soft drinks that we normally would be producing at this time of year.’’
It said the reopening of Kooragang would hopefully return full production across Australia.