Expatriate Northlanders have lost no time in making enquiries about the 300 jobs which would be created at the Marsden Pt refinery if shareholders approve a $365 million development project at an annual meeting on April 27.
The RNZ board approved the CCR (Continuous Catalyst Regeneration Platformer) project in February but the proposal requires shareholder approval because of the size of the investment.
The company expects CCR, scheduled for completion late 2012, would enable the refinery to meet 65 per cent of New Zealand's petrol needs, reliably and cost-competitively against imports.
Chief executive Ken Rivers, speaking after the first of a whirlwind series of shareholder meetings, said Northlanders working in Australia were already contacting the company to say they would love to come back and work on the project.
"When we finished the last big project in 2009 many of them left saying, 'let us know when the next project starts'," he said.