Carbon dioxide shortage threatens to take fizz out of craft beer

Friday, 17 June 2022

The shortage of carbon dioxide caused by refinery closure and maintenance at Todd’s Kapuni plant could impact production and push up costs for a range of industries.

Drinks-makers are having slow production and run down their stocks as a result of a shortage of carbon dioxide, after supply problems at the country’s last remaining producer of “food grade” fizz.

Businesses warned in March that the closure of the Marsden Point oil refinery, which used to produce much of the carbon dioxide needed by industry as a by-product of refining, could impact a wide range of food production firms.

But now separate issues have been confirmed at a gas processing plant at Todd Energy’s Kapuni gas field in Taranaki, which since the closure of the Marsden refinery has become the country’s only commercial supplier of liquid carbon dioxide, including “food grade” carbon dioxide.

A Todd Energy spokesperson said carbon dioxide production at Kapuni had been reduced “with planned maintenance impacting production through to mid-August”.

* Beer, chicken and now carbon dioxide: Why Britain's shortages keep coming

* No last minute reprieve for Marsden Point oil refinery

Businesses warned in March that the closure of the Marsden Point oil refinery could impact a wide range of food production firms.

Natural gas from the Kapuni field has an usually high concentration of more than 40% carbon dioxide and since 1969 some of that has been stripped out at a plant formerly owned by Vector and used to supply a wide range of industries.

Dylan Firth, executive director of the Brewers Association, said large brewers tended to produce their own carbon dioxide.

But if the issue escalated it could impact craft brewers, which rely on commercial supplies of carbon dioxide to help put the fizz into beer, he said.

Beverage Council spokesperson Emily Fuller said that the shortage was “quite serious” and some of its members had already slowed their production lines.

Importing carbon dioxide was an alternative, but it was an expensive option because of high freight costs and the fact it needed to be transported in “heavy cannisters”, she said.

Carbon dioxide was used in a wide range of processes in the food industry other than fizzy drinks, including in the poultry industry, and in the health sector, she said.

“It goes beyond just being able to put bubbles in your beverage.”

Fuller said issues had become pressing in the past “couple of weeks”.

“For about two weeks, we've been hearing comments that there is going to be a ‘run out’ of domestic carbon dioxide supply, particularly food grade.”

“The only solution without looking at tens of millions of dollars’ worth of investment would be to look at importing immediately.”

First Union organiser Joe Gallagher said such issues exposed another of the risks in closing the Marsden Point refinery.

“It creates that weakness in the market because when there is a problem at Kapuni, our only other option is to import.”