Media Release: Alpha Coal Project given go-ahead

[colinw]

http://statements.cabinet.qld.gov.au/MMS/StatementDisplaySingle.aspx?id=79367

Deputy Premier, Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning
The Honourable Jeff Seeney

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Alpha Coal Project given go-ahead

The Newman Government has given the green light to what will be one of Australia's biggest mines, the $6.4 billion Alpha Coal Project in Queensland's Galilee Basin.

Queensland's Coordinator-General has provided conditional approval for the mine – the first in the untapped coal rich Galilee Basin.

Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning Jeff Seeney welcomed the decision and said the project would produce significant economic benefits for the state and nation.

"There'll be an estimated $11 billion boost to the economy during the mine's three year construction phase. 80 per cent of that will be retained in Queensland," Mr Seeney said.

"Once operational, Queensland's economy should see an economic boost of $1 billion per year from this mine alone.

"Australia can expect an $80 billion dollar rise in exports over the life of the mine."

Mr Seeney said the Coordinator-General had approved the mine with strict conditions and the move was a major step towards opening up the Galilee Basin's coal deposits.

"The proposal is for a 30 million tonnes per year open-cut coal mine and a 495km railway line from the mine to the Port of Abbot Point near Bowen," he said.

The project is expected to generate up to 3600 construction jobs and 990 operational jobs.

The mine site is 130km south-west of Clermont and about 360km south-west of Mackay. The expected life of the mine is 30 years, with sufficient resources to potentially extend the project life beyond that time.

Despite the Coordinator-General completing Queensland's assessment, the Federal Minister for Environment is yet to complete his assessment under Commonwealth environmental legislation.

"The Coordinator-General has thoroughly assessed Hancock Coal's Environmental Impact Statement and associated materials, including 60 public submissions, and its Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS)," Mr Seeney said.

Coordinator-General Barry Broe said his 393 page report contains 128 conditions.

"Conditions and recommendations in my report will ensure that impacts are well mitigated and managed through environmental management plans, environmental licences, development permits and a social impact management plan," Mr Broe said.

The mine plan comprises six separate open-cut pits, with a total strike length of 24 km in a north-south direction.

Hancock Coal anticipates the construction period to occur between 2013 and 2016, subject to relevant approvals being granted for the project.

The Coordinator-General's Report can be viewed at www.projects.industry.qld.gov.au

[ENDS] 29 May 2012

[Golliwog]

Note the subtle dig at the Federal government not having yet given approval for this. I still don't understand why this needs totally new and seperate railway line to Abbot Point?

[colinw]

A few reasons:

1.  The line west of Emerald is of relatively low standard, with tight curves and steep gradients across the Drummond Range.  A partial upgrade was completed some years ago, but (just like Caboolture to Beerburrum) the 2nd stage that would have actually made the work worthwhile was never completed.

2. This mine will generate traffic in excess of the capacity of either the Goonyella or Blackwater systems without some significant upgrades.

3. Hancock wants a standard gauge heavy haul line with significantly heavier trains than QR's system can handle. Like in Pilbara operators they want to be in control of their own infrastructure.

There are at least 4 rail projects to the Galilee Basin on the drawing board.

QRN project: click here

Hancock project: click here

Waratah coal (Clive Palmer): click here

Adani: click here.  Further east than the others.

Government co-ordination badly needed!

[ozbob]

Government co-ordination badly needed!

[Golliwog]

Oh I can understand the need for sections of new track, but it's the idea that they couldn't possibly use something like the Newlands line to get there. It is narrow gauge and may need to have extra passing loops/duplicated sections but surely making that dual gauge would be better than a whole new line?

But yes, government co-ordination is certainly needed!

[colinw]

I think you will find that, as for Hancock's "Roy Hill" iron ore project in the Pilbara, the goal is completely driverless operation.

These miners are entirely uninterested in employing the services of a union influenced, management top heavy former Government railway that uses narrow gauge.

[colinw]

Brisbane Times -> Rinehart railway to hurt farmers: Agforce

May 30, 2012

Mining giant Gina Rinehart's newly approved coal rail line will rip through prime cattle land, farmers warn.

Queensland's coordinator general has given approval for the GVK-Hancock Coal $6.4 million project in Alpha in the state's central west and approval for Hancock Coal's proposed rail line from the mine to Abbot Point.

The 495km railway will cross the Belyando, Suttor and Mistake Creek flood plain, southwest of Mackay.

The state's peak farming group Agforce says it will affect the flow of water and impact on a key cattle grazing region where tens of thousands of cattle feed each year.

"It is some of Queensland's best cattle grazing country where cattle are fattened before being taken to the slaughterhouse," Agforce and local farmer Peter Anderson said.

"It will alter the flow of water, and if water stays too long in one area it will kill the grass, and if it moves too fast it will cause erosion."

He says landholders were not against the project but believe not enough planning has gone into where to best build the railway.

"There is an alternative and that is to build it on the north or north-western side of the Belyando River," he said.

"But that option has not been explored.''

[ozbob]

Deputy Premier, Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning
The Honourable Jeff Seeney
04/06/2012

Alpha coal - Canberra's comments a rehash

No new substantive issues have been raised by the Commonwealth in relation to the Queensland Coordinator-General's approval of the Alpha Coal project in the Galilee Basin, Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development Jeff Seeney said today.

The Deputy Premier repeated his calls for the Federal Government to meet its commitments under the State-Federal bilateral agreement and make a decision on the project in a 30 day period.

"Minister Burke last week said there were deficiencies in the Queensland evaluation and approvals process," Mr Seeney said.

"I asked the Federal Minister to detail what they were. It took him two days to provide the information and when he did it was nothing more than a rehash of comments previously provided to the Coordinator-General."

Mr Seeney said those matters had been taken into account in the Coordinator-General's report which provided conditional approval for the mine to proceed to the next stage.

"Some of the matters raised were outside the scope of this assessment and will be finalised as part of other assessment processes. Others were simply differences of opinion, comments on wording, or challenges to the advice of scientific experts used by the proponent.

"The Coordinator-General's office will respond to the Commonwealth comments while the approval process continues as normal under the bilateral agreement between the State and Commonwealth.

"The Coordinator-General set 128 conditions for the proponent of the Alpha Coal project - GVK-Hancock - to meet as they proceed to construction.

"Among those conditions are requirements for further significant and detailed work on potential environmental impacts and the measures needed to offset and mitigate those potential impacts that must be done prior to construction."

Mr Seeney said surveys and modelling carried out to date were adequate for assessment of impacts for this stage of the project an d for the Coordinator-General to provide conditional approval.

"The model used actually over-estimates the extent of environmental impacts."

Mr Seeney said it was open to the Commonwealth to impose further conditions.

He expected that, as part of standard procedures, the Commonwealth and the proponent would now start their own discussions to clarify any matters and ensure the Minister had whatever information he needed to make a decision within 30business days.

ENDS

[Golliwog]

Deputy Premier, Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning
The Honourable Jeff Seeney
04/06/2012

Alpha coal - Canberra's comments a rehash

...

"Some of the matters raised were outside the scope of this assessment and will be finalised as part of other assessment processes. Others were simply differences of opinion, comments on wording, or challenges to the advice of scientific experts used by the proponent.

...

This seems like a big whinge by the new government to me.  Without knowing what these differences of opinion, comments on wording or challenges are, it's hard to say, but they could well be raising important things. Tricky wording is a realtively simple way of hiding facts, as is dodgey science. I have no problem with both governments reviewing these things, and given what this state government wants to do with National Parks, I'm hesitant to trust them with anything environmental, especially when the reef is involved.

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> Newman declares war over Alpha approval suspension

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> Newman declares war over Alpha approval suspension

.... Mr Newman said Queensland had completed its assessment process and it was now up to the Federal Government to decide ''what conditions they want to see put in place to protect the national environmental interest.

''Everybody knows that this is an important project. What we need to see from the Federal Government is the conditions.

''I call on the Prime Minister to get this rogue minister into line.''

The Premier said he would ''relentlessly'' campaign against Queensland-based federal Labor politicians unless Ms Gillard took action.

''The federal Labor Government is hurting our job prospects,'' he said.

''I give notice to the Prime mMnister that if she doens't pull Minister Burke into line I will campaign relentlessly in every federal Labor member's electorate.''

Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/newman-declares-war-over-alpha-approval-suspension-20120605-1zt0f.html

[colinw]

Some commonsense at last, at least on the rail side: 

Ministerial Media Statement -> Two rail corridors defined for Galilee Basin

Deputy Premier, Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning
The Honourable Jeff Seeney

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Two rail corridors defined for Galilee Basin

The Newman Government today announced two rail corridors to service new and existing coal mines in both the Galilee and Bowen Basins.

An east-west corridor will see an extension of the existing QR National network from near Moranbah to the central Galilee Basin and will provide links to coal ports of Abbot Point, Dalrymple Bay and Dudgeon Point.

A north-south rail corridor will be defined along the proposed GVK-Hancock Coal alignment to facilitate the construction of new standard gauge rail lines to link the proposed large-scale, vertically integrated mining operations in the southern Galilee Basin to Abbot Point.

Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning Jeff Seeney said the government's decision for two corridors was a common-sense and co-ordinated approach that would replace eight different railway proposals under the previous Bligh Government.

"This outcome is a win for the mine proponents, local communities, landholders and the environment," Mr Seeney said.

He told Parliament today the two corridors were the only areas in which the State Government was likely to use its powers to compulsorily acquire land for new rail lines.

"After exhaustive negotiations with all the mine proponents I believe that the responsible development of the Galilee Basin can be achieved by defining an east-west extension of the QRN network and a north-south corridor to facilitate a new standard gauge line," Mr Seeney said.

"The Government will work towards declaring State Development Areas to define these two preferred corridors within which the Government's powers of compulsory land acquisition can be exercised to bring about our clearly stated policy outcomes of a coordinated approach to railway development.

"The east-west extension is currently being developed by QRN and Adani and provides the best option for a staged development of mine, rail and port capacity for the Galilee Basin in the short term.

"A major increase in tonnages can be carried on this extension and the existing network.
The Government will also support an expansion of capacity on the existing QRN alignment north to Abbot Point.

"It will be the preferred transport corridor for proposed developments and expansions in the northern Bowen Basin and will provide a long awaiting deviation around Collinsville," Mr Seeney said.

The Government will also support the development of coal-line standard for the existing rail line from Alpha to Emerald.

For the large, vertically integrated mines proposed for the southern Galilee area the Government will define a corridor that straddles the alignment proposed by GVK-Hancock Coal for a new 500km standard gauge line north to Abbot Point.

"The Government will ensure third party access to each of these corridors and no proponent will be disadvantaged."

"There will be the option for other large mining proposals to co-locate their own new railway lines within north-south corridor should they consider that to be more commercially viable.

ENDS

[colinw]

The Government will also support the development of coal-line standard for the existing rail line from Alpha to Emerald.

Good. The line beyond Emerald has already had a partial upgrade over the Drummond Range, which is currently a stranded investment because phase 2 of the project got "Beerburrumed". If the line is electrified (?) then that means the mothballed electrification to Emerald will also be resurrected from white elephant status.

[SurfRail]

Colin - what sort of costs are involved with extending wires over already properly engineered track (eg the GAP link recently opened)?

I think we should revisit this question because oil is not necessarily always going to be cheaper, and we are not always going to be burning coal for our power (but there will still be plenty of need for hydrocarbons for other industrial purposes like plastics, coking steel etc).

The NCL is not something I would want to see with extra wiring unless it is realigned at the same time.  But, thinking rationally, freight is always going to have to be transhipped at Acacia Ridge or some other metropolitan yard (we aren't going to just convert thousands of km of track to standard gauge to allow direct services interstate, the numbers would never work), so why not get as much through-electric traction from Cairns to Brisbane as possible?

[colinw]

For high voltage AC in a mainline environment, the minimum seems to be around the $1.25 million / km mark. There's a lot of fixed costs in doing the job which mean that a single track isn't hugely cheaper than double track, so $1.25m/km for single track might become $1.5m/km for double track.  For example, recent works on the US NorthEast Corridor around Boston have come in around the US $2.5 million/mile mark for double track, which is just above AUS$ 1.5 million / km.

The figure I give is the bottom end, with additional costs if you need to modify structures for clearance, or immunise signalling against eddy currents / interference.

Suburban lines with lots of station works, stabling, etc. tend to be more expensive, e.g. Craigieburn project in Melbourne was more like $10 million / km, and the Sunbury project (15km of double track) at $270M is higher again. These projects, however, included new stabling & tunrbacks, major station rebuilds, changes to signalling and other costs, so it is hard to isolate just how much is the electrification. These projects were also 1500V DC, which is more expensive due to heavier wiring & structures and closely spaced substations. High voltage AC like in Queensland & WA is a lot cheaper.

Duplications on the coalfields in recent years have also managed to hit some very impressive costs per km, e.g. the 15.5km duplication from Bluff to Blackwater in 2007 which duplicated 15.1km of electrified line for $16.5 million.

[Golliwog]

Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning Jeff Seeney said the government's decision for two corridors was a common-sense and co-ordinated approach that would replace eight different railway proposals under the previous Bligh Government.

Again with needlessly sinking the boot in! If you actually knew anything about it, the government was deliberately trying to get the different businesses to work with each other to develop joint corridors without government intervention. But none of them could agree, and more than likely if Labor had won the last election, they would be making a similar announcement about corridors now. So trying to say "Labor had 8 proposals, isn't that silly?" is ridiculous when the previous government had absolutely nothing to do with there being 8 proposals!

[colinw]

Yet more proof that this Government has yet to transition from Opposition Mode to Responsible Government mode.

Newman also appears to have a penchant for meddling in Federal issues and playing the "Bash Canberra" card. He is shaping up as Joh version 2.0.

[Golliwog]

Yet more proof that this Government has yet to transition from Opposition Mode to Responsible Government mode.

Newman also appears to have a penchant for meddling in Federal issues and playing the "Bash Canberra" card. He is shaping up as Joh version 2.0.

I don't think it's just "Bash Canberra" though. I think it's more, "I want this, you're not letting me have it when I want it, so I'm going to kick up a stink about it."

I mean, from what I can see the Fed's also want the project to go ahead, the environment minister just wants to be sure that the environment is looked after. The way Campbell's acting, you'd think he was the 5yr old at the party who didn't get any birthday cake.

[colinw]

You're right, it did somewhat resemble a toddler tantrum.

I want my big coal mine, and I want it now!  No fair. Waaaaah!

[colinw]

Looks like the Deputy Premier is trying to smooth things over. At least someone in the Government is acting like an adult. 

This release adopts a surprisingly conciliatory tone after the previous bluster put out by Newman.

http://statements.cabinet.qld.gov.au/MMS/StatementDisplaySingle.aspx?id=79497

Deputy Premier, Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning
The Honourable Jeff Seeney

Thursday, June 07, 2012

Alpha Coal – Federal-State meeting

Talks today between Queensland and Commonwealth Ministers regarding the bilateral environmental approvals process for the Alpha Coal project have been productive.

Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning Jeff Seeney, Minister for Environment and Heritage Protection Andrew Powell and Queensland Coordinator-General Barry Broe met Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke and senior federal Environment Department officials.

Queensland today provided a detailed response to the Federal Environment Minister on matters he has raised over the past week in relation to the Alpha Coal project's conditional approval.

It was also agreed that there was a different understanding and interpretation of the current bilateral environmental approval process between the parties.

There is a joint commitment to the future of the bilateral agreement and Queensland will respond within the next ten days to the Commonwealth's notice that it may suspend the bilateral approvals process.

It was agreed both parties would work to find a way forward on the bilateral process within that period.

The State and Federal Ministers will produce possible amendments to the agreement and exchange those amendments for consideration with the aim of providing a stronger, clearer agreement which provided more certainty to project proponents, the State and Commonwealth in the process.

It was also agreed the Commonwealth would follow up directly with the Alpha Coal proponent on matters it wanted clarified.

Queensland continues to have full confidence in the conditional approval provided for the Alpha Coal project in the Galilee Basin by the State Coordinator-General.

Queensland is committed to streamlining the approvals processes while ensuring the highest environmental standards are maintained and proponents of major projects adhere to world's best practice as they proceed with resource developments.

[SurfRail]

I wish they could be this diplomatic on everything. 

I think they have clearly realised where most of their serious funding comes from, and which party runs it (at least for the next year), hence the marked change in tone.