South Australia’s peak environment body has asked the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) to investigate whether Adelaide-based NeuRizer Ltd. has misled shareholders and consumers about the green credentials of the urea fertilizer project it is developing north of Adelaide, according to an Australian Associated Press report.
The NeuRizer Urea Project (NRUP) is planned to have an initial capacity of 1 million mt/y of urea, utilizing in-situ gasification (ISG) based on coal from the decommissioned Leigh Creek coal mine (GM Aug. 5, 2022). The project is located approximately 550 kilometers north of Adelaide.
The Conservation Council of South Australia disputes a series of claims made by NeuRizer, including that the company was a certified carbon-neutral organization and the project was “carbon neutral by design.”
The Council’s lawyers called the representations misleading, arguing that the production of “urea fertilizer at the NeuRizer site is not carbon neutral, as it is based on fossil fuel hydrogen production from gases related to brown coal reserves.”
In a report by South Australia’s InDaily newspaper, NeuRizer Executive Chairman Daniel Justyn Peters rejected the Conservation Council’s claims and welcomed an investigation, saying “the complaint was factually incorrect, misleading,” and was part of the council’s “ideological opposition to gas, coal, and a range of other endeavours.”
NeuRizer late last month reported that it had secured another A$1.5 million (approximately US$0.97 million at current exchange rates) in government funding and expects another research and development rebate for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023, for certain activities under Stage 1 of its urea project (GM June 2, p. 29).