The Iona Gas Plant is a

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

processing and underground storage facility at Waarre near

Port Campbell Port Campbell () is a coastal town in Victoria, Australia. The town is on the Great Ocean Road, west of the Twelve Apostles, in the Shire of Corangamite. At the , Port Campbell had a population of 478. History The port and the town are named ...

in the Australian state of

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

. The Iona Gas Plant is owned by Lochard Energy. The Iona Gas Plant is on the site of the Iona Gas Field which was discovered in 1988. When the natural gas was depleted, the underground reservoir was converted for storage of processed gas. The processing plant was commissioned for commercial operation in 1999. It receives and processes gas from gas wells in the offshore Casino Gas Field of the

Otway Basin The Otway Basin is a northwest trending sedimentary basin located along the southern coast of Australia. The basin covers an area of 150,000 square kilometers and spans from southeastern South Australia to southwestern Victoria, with 80% lying off ...

. Processed gas is stored underground in a depleted gas field reservoir. Gas from the Iona Gas Plant can be sent to

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

via the

SEAGas pipeline The SEA Gas pipeline ''(South East Australia Gas pipeline)'' is a 687 km natural gas pipeline from the Iona Gas Plant near Port Campbell in Victoria to the Pelican Point Power Station at Port Adelaide. It connects Adelaide's gas supply to s ...

and to

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

via the South West Pipeline. The Iona Gas Plant is adjacent to the

Otway Gas Plant Otway may refer to: Places Australia *Cape Otway, a geographical feature on the coast of Victoria, Australia *Shire of Colac Otway, Victoria, Australia *Great Otway National Park, a national park in Victoria, Australia *Otway Basin, a geological fe ...

with a pipeline that enables transfer of gas between the two facilities. Lochard Energy is a subsidiary of QIC. It bought the Iona facility in 2015 from

EnergyAustralia EnergyAustralia (formerly TRUenergy) is an electricity generation, electricity and gas retailing private company in Australia, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based and listed China Light and Power (CLP Group). EnergyAustralia also ...

. A new storage well was drilled in 2018 to increase the available storage of processed gas, as demand for gas in Victoria on cold days in winter exceeds the production capacity on those days.

References

Energy in Victoria (Australia) Fuels infrastructure in Australia Natural gas plants {{Victoria-stub