Allan Blood

Allan Blood is the Executive Chairman of Latrobe Fertilisers Ltd, an unlisted public company in Australia. Latrobe Fertilisers has proposed to build a $500 million coal-to-urea plant in the Latrobe Valley.

Blood was Executive Chairman of the Australian Energy Company which aimed to develop coal gasification and coal to liquids projects in Victoria. The company was the proponent, via the Australian-American Energy Company LLC, of the Many Stars Coal-to-Liquids project in southeastern Montana.

Background
A biographical note originally posted on the AEC website stated that Blood "was the founder and Chairman of Australian Power & Energy Limited (APEL), now Monash Energy Limited. APEL was formed in 1998 to develop the Victorian Power & Liquids Project, the AU$5 billion coal to gas to liquids and power project. Following the takeover by Anglo in 2004 Mr Blood formed AEC and initiated the company’s current undertaking. Mr. Blood has both domestic and international project development experience. Previous roles include Managing Director of Value Engineering Australia, Executive Chairman of the Bulgarian-Australian Manganese Company and Executive Chairman of Schefferville Iron & Minerals Inc in Canada."

Labor Party donor
Australian Electoral Commission records reveal that on September 20, 2004 Blood donated $100,000 to the Victorian branch of the Australian Labor Party through Ferrara Holdings Ltd, which was listed in official returns as a trustee for the Jackson Family Trust.

Bill Birnbauer reported in The Age that the "shareholders and directors of Ferrara Holdings are Trevor Allan Blood and Sally Jean Blood. Australian Electoral Commission documents show that Ferrara Holdings failed at first to declare the donations. The commission alerted the company in October last year to a requirement that donations of more than $1500 had to be declared. A company representative wrote back in December saying, 'I was aware that political parties had to disclose donors but not the other way around.'"

Blood rejected the suggestion that he could have made the donation to buy influence. "I was long out of it by then, so it had nothing to do with that and it wasn't even solicited. I just think they're (the Government) doing a great job and I was keen to help." The Perth-based businessman stated that he had property and start up companies in Victoria. "I'm even a member of the Liberal 500 Club over there," he said. On February 21, 2005 Ferrara Holdings donated $10,000 to the WA Liberal Party. The Australian Energy Company Ltd "gave Labor's funding arm, the Progressive Business Association, a further $9250. Mr Blood became a director of Australian Energy Company Ltd in November 2004."

Australian Electoral Commission records reveal that Blood contributed a further $200,000 to the Victorian branch of the Labor Party on December 14, 2006.

Submission to the Garnaut review
In a submission to the first Garnaut review on carbon pricing, Blood warned against the introduction of a carbon tax or price via and emissions trading scheme. In his submission he describing the coal-to-fertiliser project as "ready for commercial commitment" and argued that:


 * "we do not consider any of the technology blocks to be 'first of a kind' or technically unproven. This is very critical to the projects Bankability. Every component of this projects flow sheet has been successfully implemented elsewhere in the world." However, Blood warned, "the potential for a carbon tax via a form of emissions trading is a major economic issue for this project if it occurred prior to the project being able to geo-sequester its carbon dioxide via the dedicated CO2 pipeline facility the Victorian Government plan to facilitate. It would in fact preclude the project from going ahead based on the indicative number of A$40/tonne. We have modelled this privately with the Victorian Government Department of Primary Industry which encompasses energy related projects."

Support for brown coal allocation
In May 2009 Blood told The Age, that "aAccess to coal is a real issue and it is something that the Government needs to address and should be addressed very quickly because it is going to hold up potential new projects ... The Government must allocate coal on a use-it-or-lose-it basis. The Monash project, which Anglo American and Shell have pulled out of, has all that coal converted to a mining lease and they can sit on it and that is wrong."

Affiliations

 * Non-Executive Chairman, MKY Corporation

Contact details
22 Dalby Road Hovea W A 6071 Telephone: (08) 9298 9588 Facsimile: (08) 9298 9522 Email : ablood AT latrobefertilisers.com.au

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Researching coal in Victoria
 * Victoria and coal


 * Australia and coal
 * Carbon Capture and Storage
 * Carbon Capture and Storage in Australia
 * New South Wales and coal
 * Queensland and coal

External resources

 * Allan Blood, "Interview with Allan Blood", IIR, 26-27 September 2011.

External articles

 * Jane Cowan, "Coal the answer to petrol crisis, says industry", The World Today, June 3, 2008.
 * Shaun Mallia, "Fertile ground", Latrobe Valley Express, June 5, 2008.
 * Royce Miller, "The high price for coal's Holy Grail", The Age, November 4, 2009.
 * David Winning, "AEC seeks cornerstone investor for brown-coal project", The Australian, April 16, 2012. (This article was originally published by The Wall Street Journal).
 * Sarah Thompson, Anthony Macdonald and Gretchen Frieman, "Latrobe Fertilisers pushes ahead with IPO", The Land, June 11, 2013. A slightly different version of the story appeared first in the Australian Financial Review as Sarah Thompson, Anthony Macdonald and Gretchen Frieman, "Latrobe Fertilisers pushes ahead with IPO", June 11, 2013 (Subscription required).
 * Louis Nelson, "Reality check for new coal", Latrobe Valley Express, June 13, 2013.
 * Royce Millar and Tom Arup, "Loy Yang in lawsuit over Blood money", The Age, July 9, 2013.