We take these commitments very seriously, because Marsden Point is our home too.
We have a ‘no spill culture’ and strict procedures in place to ensure that we are acting as responsible custodians over the land upon which we operate.
Over the past few years, we have invested $25 million into site cleaning, preventing hydrocarbons leaving the site, and bolstering the resilience of our water treatment systems. In 2024 alone, we invested $55 million into upgrading our site as we work towards world-class operations; this included upgrading our tank bunds and firefighting systems which will help to minimise impacts on the environment in the event of a significant incident.
Our Marsden Point site holds a 35-year Resource Consent to operate. This consent was granted in 2021 following a detailed environmental impact assessment of our processes, and operations. This assessment reviewed our operations’ effects on the harbour, land, air quality and the surrounding community, and allows us to pursue the range of energy opportunities under consideration.
As part of our Resource Consent, we maintain strict protections and a high level of environmental standards, and to ensure any operations that take place on our site do so in a responsible manner.
Protecting the land on which we operate
Our robust land management systems are designed to ensure our past, current, and future operations will continue to have minimal impact on the environment around us.
These systems include:
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- Regular monitoring and testing of our groundwater well network to measure hydrocarbon contamination under the site
- Monitoring of the 28 wells around our boundary. This provides a good picture of the groundwater quality leaving our site
- Use of recovery wells which contain and remove hydrocarbon contamination under the site
- Management of earthworks and site disturbance in accordance with our Ground Contamination Management Plan
- Assessment of soils during works where they are potentially contaminated to determine if the soil is suitable for use on site
- A robust permit to work system, which requires us to put in place controls to minimise risk to our workers and the environment. All work on site requires a permit to work.
- Clean up of any leaks or spillages on site
- An awareness of historic site practices which ensures adequate environmental controls are in place prior to the execution of any significant works on site.
- Cleaning our decommissioned plant and associated infrastructure to ensure an residual contamination is removed from site.
Recovering energy from waste
An important part of the decommissioning of the refinery facilities was the cleaning of the more than 60 tanks that have been mothballed or decommissioned. This process involves comprehensive cleaning to ensure the tanks are left in a safe and environmentally sound condition and includes removal and disposal of associated tank sludge waste.
As part of this initiative, Channel worked with Golden Bay Cement to assess the suitability of using the sludge waste as a fuel for the cement manufacturing process at their nearby Portland cement works. Upon confirmation that reusing the waste material would meet strict safety and environmental requirements, Channel commenced supply of this waste product – now a valuable fuel – to the Portland cement works. Channel has sent over 3.700 tonnes of tank sludge waste to be mixed with wood and other waste materials and reused as a fuel in the cement production plant. This initiative has reduced waste to landfill and displaced the use of other fossil fuels that would otherwise have been required to supply Golden Bay Cement’s energy needs.
Wastewater management
Over the past three years, we have significantly reduced our water use on site and the amount of water discharged to the harbour has significantly decreased, further reducing our impact on the harbour. We continue to undertake ongoing cleaning of our water network to further reduce contaminants that may enter into the harbour.
Erosion management strategy
Recent studies have observed and confirmed evidence of erosion at Channel’s coastal site boundary, and identified the future possibility of ongoing erosion events as a result of climate change. This includes storms and tsunami aggravated by sea level rise and changing weather patterns.
Our erosion management strategy aims to manage the dynamic coastal environment in which we operate in a way that not only provides resilience to our nationally significant infrastructure, but also recognises wider social, cultural, and environmental considerations.
Our coastal erosion strategy includes monitoring of the dunes of the coastal foreshore to track movement or recession over time. Our mapping, along with information from the Northland Regional Council, has been used to predict and track expected retreat of the dunes over the next 35 to 50 years so that we can make the necessary investments to manage the potential retreat from land that is most at risk of weather-related impacts over this time.
In 2023, we expanded our erosion mapping assessments for climate warming scenarios including a 4oC warming case, which assessed the risk to Channel’s site to at least 2080 as low to medium in the majority of cases, with only simple mitigation required. In 2024, the output of this work has been incorporated into our long-term strategic asset management plan so that necessary mitigations are planned to maintain long-term resilience of our infrastructure.
This work has also meant that identified climate risks are considered in the development of opportunities contemplated in our Energy Precinct Concept plan such as the Fortescue eSAF manufacturing facility and the Seadra Energy consortium’s biorefinery project development.
In addition, we are developing a Coastal Landscape Management Plan in conjunction with our iwi partners, which will, among other things, include dune planting to improve dune resilience to erosion events.
