Premier Peter Malinauskas tells ExxonMobil to clean up Port Stanvac for housing

Premier Peter Malinauskas has demanded ExxonMobil clean up its abandoned oil refinery at Port Stanvac to build a massive new housing development in the southern suburbs.

Premier Peter Malinauskas is demanding global oil giant ExxonMobil allow development of at least 1500 homes in Adelaide’s south by exiting its long-closed Port Stanvac refinery site.

In a meeting in with ExxonMobil in Washington, D.C., Mr Malinauskas threatened to do “whatever it takes” legislatively to force the firm to remediate and sell for housing the 224ha refinery site, which closed in 2003.

But he said the government preferred to work with ExxonMobil to enable development on the coastal land parcel, near the North-South road corridor and Seaford train line.

About a quarter of the Lonsdale site, or 56ha, is believed to be developable for housing, with conservative estimates showing this would yield about 1500 homes.

Premier Peter Malinauskas is demanding ExxonMobil clean up Port Stanvac. Picture: Supplied

Mr Malinauskas told The Advertiser that ExxonMobil, which has been remediating the site, agreed to engage with government land agency Renewal SA.

”I made it pretty clear today to ExxonMobil that it’s now time to get active here. We can’t have a housing crisis and have parcels of land like that sitting idle for another 10-15 years … it is a huge parcel of land in a very strategic location,” he said.

An oil refinery operated at Port Stanvac, just south of Hallett Cove, in 1963 and was mothballed by ExxonMobil in 2003, officially closed in 2009 and a landmark chimney demolished in 2014.

An aerial photo of the Port Stanvac oil refinery in May, 1988.

The site was shut down in 2003.

Asked if he set a time frame for action to enable the site’s redevelopment, Mr Malinauskas said he told ExxonMobil that “we can’t wait five years, we want something to happen quickly”.

Mr Malinauskas said the next steps were for ExxonMobil to work with Renewal SA on a plan to ensure the site was remediated, on the market and redeveloped.

Port Stanvac also has a backup desalination plant, completed at the site in 2012, and a diesel-powered electricity peaking plant.

Asked to comment on the meeting, ExxonMobil Australia said it was “keen to see the site developed” and had been discussing “a range of potential uses” for “a number of years” with the state government, Onkaparinga Council and “interested parties”.

“Our extensive investigation of the site and remediation works completed to date confirm that large areas are suitable for residential use,” a spokesman said.

Redevelopment could include low-cost housing, coastal parkland and trails, along with commercial and industrial uses.

Originally published as Premier Peter Malinauskas tells ExxonMobil to clean up Port Stanvac for housing