During Parliamentary Budget Estimates on Friday 16 July 2021, I asked the CEO of Government-owned Corporation CS Energy about their plans to spend public money fixing the exploded C4 turbine at Callide C, a coal-fired power station.
You can read the answers below or in the official Queensland Parliament Record of Proceedings (Hansard).
Mr BERKMAN: My question is to the CEO of CS Energy. Mr Bills, I understand that you and the energy minister have said it is CS Energy’s intention to rebuild the Callide C4 turbine. Has the joint venture partner, InterGen, agreed to that decision and committed to funding their fair share of the repair bill, or could this cost fall entirely to CS Energy?
Mr Bills: The CEO of InterGen accompanied me to site the week after the incident. Before I go further, in relation to the incident I want to acknowledge the actions of our people which ensured that no-one was hurt and there were no injuries. We have restored two units and we have a third unit coming back. That needs to be commended and respected, and it goes to the quality of our people. I will now turn to answer your question. Yes, the CEO of InterGen has accompanied me to site and has made that public statement. You are right in that the asset is jointly owned 50 per cent between InterGen and CS Energy. Both ourselves and InterGen have different insurers and are working through the process of the claim and the insurance payment. At the moment there is nothing to suggest from the CEO of InterGen that they are not following through with that commitment.
Mr BERKMAN: Are you able to give us an indication of what you understand the cost of that repair bill will be?
Mr Bills: Our loss assessors only gained access to the unit two weeks ago because up until then it was under the control of Workplace Health and Safety Queensland. This is a very current process so at the moment we do not know the timing or the value.