Whopping $500m cannabis project receives Federal licences
THE company behind a $500 million medicinal cannabis facility in Toowoomba has overcome its last major regulatory hurdle.
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THE company behind a $500 million medicinal cannabis facility in Toowoomba has overcome its last major regulatory hurdle, receiving its licences from the Federal Office of Drug Control.
Asterion Australia director of communications and business development Dave Holland said the granting of three licences for cultivation of cannabis, research of cannabis and for the manufacturing and processing of the plant into medicines came through late on Friday evening.
The company expects to begin construction at its 75ha site at Wellcamp within the first quarter of next year, with cultivation of its first crop in 2022.
Mr Holland said the company was now in the process of getting ready to build, and was also starting to think about how to train up a workforce of more than 1000 people to work on the site.
“In terms of employment the next phase of us is to engage with trainers and so we’ll be having discussion at least initially with Toowoomba TAFE. We’ve had an introduction to them and are looking to see how we can crank that up,” he said.
“And we need to develop a trained workforce of more than 1000 people, most of whom could start as unskilled workers and go through what we envisage is a Cert II course in advanced horticulture, one designed specifically around the operation.”
Mr Holland said the first stage of production would involve “quite specialised staff” working to cultivate plants in the tissue culture facility, which would begin in the first half of 2022.
“Then it’ll be broader cultivation and processing staff in the next phase,” he said.
“We’re all very positive and excited. We’ve been talking to the contractors we’ve been working with and everyone’s just raring to go now. We’ve got the keys to ignition. It just kicks off now.”
Asterion chairman and CEO Stephen Van Deventer said on completion, the Toowoomba facility was expected to harvest more than 20,000 plants a day, and to generate an estimated $2 billion annually in exports, while also supplying medicinal cannabis to the Australian market.
The facility will consist of four glasshouse “modules”, capable of producing 500 tonnes a year of dried cannabis for medicinal use, as well as processing, packing and tissue culture facility and administration building.
The issuing of the licence also allows the company to move to the next phase of capital raising, with plans to list the company on the Toronto Stock Exchange around March, Mr Holland said.