Park Fuels won a major contract as a fuel supplier to the Snowy 2.0 project in Australia’s Snowy Mountains after connecting with ICN NSW and ICN Gateway.
Based in the Snowy Mountains, the Snowy 2.0 project will supercharge the Snowy Scheme’s existing hydro-electric generation and large-scale storage capabilities. The fast-start, on-demand generation of pumped-hydro and Snowy 2.0’s massive storage capacity will be vital as more intermittent, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar come online and coal-fired power stations retire.
Snowy 2.0 will add 2,000 megawatts of energy generation and provide 175 hours of storage for the National Electricity Market (NEM). This is enough to ensure the stability and reliability of the system during prolonged weather events, such as wind or solar ‘droughts’.
This major project involves the construction of 27 km of power waterway tunnels, and has brought a great deal of investment and jobs to the area. It has also created opportunities for a range of suppliers from around the state. One of these is the NSW-based Park Fuels.
Supplying fuel to the Snowy 2.0 project
Park Fuels is a family-owned business with a 30-year history and around 100 employees.
With bases in the coastal towns of Newcastle and Port Kembla, it operates by importing and storing fuel (up to 120 million litres at a time, and about to expand by an additional 60 million litres), and then supplying and transporting it to wholesalers and retailers around the country.
Park Fuels has a number of unmanned refuelling stations as well as service stations around the Illawarra. The business also delivers fuel directly to major projects.
“We do everything in the fuel industry, from supplying a small farmer who may only need 1,000 litres at a time, up to a major mine site,” explains Park Fuels Business Development Manager Jack Balmforth.
The company registered with ICN Gateway in late 2022 to keep up to date with upcoming tenders and work packages. “Beti Krsteski reached out to us almost straight away,” says Jack, “She is our local Regional Manager and advised that an opportunity for Snowy 2.0 fuel supply had come up. She touched base to make sure we had seen it and were aware of it, which was fantastic because not many other similar companies show that level of support.”
“We signed up and followed the tendering process for the work package, and we now do the same with other opportunities that ICN NSW presents,” Jack adds.
The Snowy 2.0 contract was the first one Park Fuels applied for and the team was pleased to be awarded the job. “We had been using some other tendering systems but I think ICN is fantastic, it’s got some really good packages available. Beti helped me get set up and start receiving notifications, then we started the tender process in October, finalised it in February and started work reasonably quickly after that.”
Park Fuels now supplies and delivers fuel to the site in the Snowy Mountains. “We’re a family business and we are quite agile,” Jack explains, “By delivering ourselves, we can stay in control. It’s a long journey and there are potential problems that can arise, such as the weather and some tricky terrain, but we have done similar projects in the past so it’s nothing we are not familiar with.”
Throughout the tendering process, “Beti kept checking in with us to see how we were going,” he says, “She also helped us to get onto the Northern NSW tender projects because we have a base in Newcastle. Just seeing the work packages ICN NSW has on its website, I feel like there are so many opportunities, not only for fuel supply but for other industries.”
Working with ICN NSW makes Jack’s job easier because it exposes him to the different jobs that are out there. Jack is happy to recommend ICN NSW and ICN Gateway to other businesses and suppliers, saying “I think it’s brilliant”.
