An ambitious $16 billion proposal to build a heavy freight railway line from Abbot Point (Bowen) QLD, to Port Headland Western Australia, could see the development of a super port and heavy industrial city within or near the Whitsundays.If the project gets the 'go ahead', it will definatly mean that the Abbot Point part of the project will see massive heavy industrial development adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef.
Project Iron Boomerang (East West Line Parks Pty Ltd) is proceeding with further study to establish first stage iron and steel smelters:
- near Newman Fortescue River Valley in Western Australia (WA) and at Abbot Point Precinct in Queensland (QLD) (near Bowen, N-Qld).
- linked by a new heavy gauge railway line
- over 3,300 kilometres
- West to East
- from Port Hedland (spur to Dampier) in WA to Abbot Point in QLD
- linking Australia's export iron ore - coking/thermal coal mines
- will also utilise both the sustainable and abundant natural gases available
- coal seam methane gas in Queensland
- natural gas in Western Australia
If the project is completed, it is proposed that 33 million tonnes of iron ore and 20 million tonnes of coal will be sent by rail from Moranbah annually to the smelters at Abbot Point, and then exporting 22 million tonnes of steel from Abbot Point every year.
If this and the proposed Aluminium smelter for Abbot Point go ahead, there will also be a need for a power station as well to supply the huge amounts of electricity required - more than likely this will be coal or gas powered.
More on this story at Transport and Logistics News
Full report (in PDF format) on Project Iron Boomerang
East West Line Parks Pty Ltd - Project Iron Boomerang website
Project Iron Boomerang Powerpoint presentation
Missing Northern Link update
Images from Project Iron Boomerang
Editors note:
* When the winds blow in the Whitsundays, it is mostly from the south east. However, around 5-10% of the time the winds blow from the N-NW, thus sending any possible air pollution from Abbot Point down through the whole Whitsundays region.
* It would cost around $10-12 billion dollars to build a plant/smelters to produce around 22 million tonnes of steel slab annually.
* If the average train carries 7,000 tonnes, this means that there will be an additional heavy freight train going through Collinsville every 30 minutes.
* By comparison, the Port Kembla (Illawarra) Steel works (image below) produces 5 million tonnes a year.
* 4 Corners (ABC TV) report on the current social issues in the Illawarra (NSW) of a heavy industrial town in recession.
* Could the decision to stall construction of the Northern Missing Link by QR have been made because of this proposal by East West to build the line?
1 comment:
Yes Steel Smelters are destined for the Whitsundays!. I think this is a great idea and support it 100%. If a heavy industrial city were to be devloped in the Whitsundays it should be in the area of Kelsey Creek west of Proserpine because Proserpine has limited future prospects and needs that kind of support. Proserpine was supposed to have been the site for a shale oil mine but that was deemed to unsuitable for the position it was going to be placed in so that idea was scrapped leaving the town once again hanging on by a thread. Kelsey creek should be the area for an industrialised city in the Whitsundays as it is basically as far inland as you can go in the Bowen, Airlie Beach, Cannonvale area so it would have minimal impact on the Great Barrier reef and Air Quality. Practices and stoppers could be put in place to prevent any chemicals etc.. entering any of the creeks in the area and the creeks could be incorporated into a botanical garden are within the city. So please everyone Proserpine and The Whitsundays economy is suffering and it needs this type of investment, we don't want to have another vital project scrapped by some know-it-all enviromentalists who try and stop these devlopemtns instead of coming up with better alternatives.
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