India’s Adani is confident of providing an extra 10 million tonnes a year of coal capacity for virtually no cost at Queensland’s Abbott Point coal port to douse worries about infrastructure bottlenecks.
As Queensland’s coalition government unveiled its latest plans to expand the port on Wednesday, the Indian company’s Australian boss talked up Adani’s plans for the port.
The Indian giant has a 99-year lease at its 50 million tonne capacity port terminal at Abbott Point, north of Mackay, and has applied to increase that by 70 million tonnes to cater for its proposed Galilee Basin project, which would be Australia’s largest coal mine.
Despite a struggling global coal industry, Adani Australian head Harsh Mishra told AAP the company is pushing ahead with its $8 billion mine, rail and port plan to supply coal to its power plants back in India.
The state coalition scrapped a $9 billion plans by the previous Labor government to build the world’s largest coal port last year, raising worries about bottlenecks stopping Australia fully benefiting from the resources industry.
Mr Mishra said that with very minor spending and de-bottlenecking he could increase the terminal’s capacity by 10 million tonnes a year for whoever needed it.
“We will be entering the market shortly to allot approximately 30 million tonnes of capacity to additional third party customers,” he said.
He hopes to turn the first sod building the 60 million tonne a year Carmichael coal mine by the end of this year, pending port, rail and mine approvals.
The biggest risk to the project is building a rail line, with rival Indian company GVK and Australian hauler Aurizon already striking a deal to build a 500km line.
The Queensland government only wants one rail corridor built.
But Mr Mishra said he had no doubt Adani’s independent rail line would be approved ahead of GVK-Aurizon’s because it was better for the state.
Global miners including BHP Billiton, Xstrata and Rio Tinto are scaling down ambitious coal plans in Queensland.
However Mr Mishra is bullish on the sector, saying coal will remain the predominant part of the energy mix for at least the next 30 years.
It provides 70 per cent of India’s electricity, including most of the intended 100,000 megawatt increase in capacity every five years to support 7.5 per cent a year economic growth, he said.
Coal is Australia’s second largest export.
On Wednesday mining giant Anglo American and an Aurizon Lend Lease joint venture were named by the Queensland government as candidates to build new terminals at Abbott Point.
Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney described the export coal sector as a critical part of the state’s economy and infrastructure needs.
