USD 20 billion underground coal project in Queensland
Sunday, 20 Sep 2009
The Australian reported that in the middle of nowhere in central Queensland, a new future for the Australian coal industry is taking shape.
The brigalow scrub dotting their property near the tiny town of Alpha is the centre of a projected USD 20 billion worth of investment, with three new coalmines and a new generation clean coal power station planned, as well as 500 kilometers of railway to take the ore to a new port on the coast.
The two main proponents in the Galilee Basin hail from the Bjelke Petersen era: one of Sir Joh's closest confidants, Lang Hancock, first found coal in the area in the 1970s, and now his daughter, Gina Rinehart, is preparing an environmental impact statement for two new mines there.
Sir Joh's former spokesman, Mr Clive Palmer, now Australia's fifth richest man, is the other major player, with an USD 8 billion proposal that includes not only a new coalmine but also the power station and associated infrastructure to get the coal to port.
This is very much a sunrise enterprise and, if it comes off, the Galilee Basin will join the USD 43 billion Gorgon liquefied natural gas project off Western Australia and Queensland's emerging coal seam gas industry in powering the nation into a new era of prosperity, hooked into the economic juggernauts of China and India.
Subject to environmental approval, the three mines proposed by Rinehart and Palmer could be exporting 100 million tonnes of coal within four years more than the entire amount exported from the Hunter Valley in NSW. While these projects are the most advanced, there are other, smaller holdings in the area, such as those held by Brisbane based Linc Energy, which claims to have up to 3.4 billion tonnes of thermal coal.
The original plan called for a new port at Shoalwater Bay, in central Queensland, which would be capable of taking Chinese supertankers, but federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett has ruled this out.
