Fuelling Mackay’s Job Market into the Future

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September 4, 2015

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by Emily Smith (Daily Mercury) NOTHING creates jobs like the resource industry. It’s a widely held view in the Mackay region but Carl Morton is throwing it up for debate. The national operations manager for Wilmar’s bioethanol distillery said employment opportunities in biofuels one day may rival the resource industry, if government policy changed.

That optimism stems from the industry’s diversity.

“From sugar cane we get molasses, from molasses we get ethanol, from ethanol we get the dunder, which goes back onto sugar cane,” Mr Morton said. “We can compete with those resource companies directly on wages, and I think we’ve got a better story.”

The process that creates fuel-grade ethanol also makes raw sugar, molasses, mill mud, liquid fertiliser, dunder and stockfeed.

Along with the job creation those products carve, the Sarina distillery makes industrial-grade ethanol.

This form can be used in pharmaceuticals, beverages, cosmetics and paints, to name a few.

“Studies show there is an eight to one ratio,” Mr Morton said.

“For every job here there are eight that support the business.”

The Sarina distillery now employs 80 people directly, and another 190 are employed next door at the Plane Creek Mill.

“Then we have our fertilizer business, we have 80 people that put that into fields,” Mr Morton said.

“We have 700 or 800 growers we supply to.” READ MORE and MORE (ABC, includes audio)

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