Whitsundays to become World's Biggest Coal Port

The Whitsunday's Abbot Point is to increase its export capacity to become the world's biggest coal harbor. 

North Queensland Bulk Ports Corp intends to develop additional terminals and expand export capacity over 1000% to over 220 million metric tons of coal a year. The harbor is currently being enlarged from 21 million tons now to 50 million tons in 2011

BHP Billiton and Hancock Coal won preferred status recently to develop two additional terminals at Abbot Point that will take export capacity to 110 million metric tons.

North Queensland Bulk Ports Corp., Chief Executive Officer Brad Fish said in an interview with Bloomberg; "If you were to fast forward about 10 years, it’s not impossible to imagine that there could be four or five coal terminals sitting at the port of Abbot Point; that would make it, by a country mile, the largest coal port in the world."

Abbot Point is 25 kilometers (16 miles) north of Bowen, and 100km NW of Hamilton Island, and currently has one terminal. The port shipped 14.4 million tons and 176 vessels in the year ending June 30, 2009, according to the North Queensland Bulk Ports Corp website.

Hamilton Island is about 1,100 kilometers north of Brisbane, the Queensland state capital.

Biggest Ports

Newcastle (NSW) port is the world's biggest export harbor for coal. It has a capacity of 113 million tons and is being increased to 163 million tons by 2012.

Port Waratah Coal Services, operator of two of the three terminals at Newcastle, said it received planning approval from the state government to develop additional infrastructure, including a fourth vessel loader, that will help increase the harbor’s total export capacity to 175 million tons.

South Africa's Richards Bay, has increased its capacity to 91 million tons. Dalrymple Bay, just 100km to the south of Hamilton Island, has the capacity to export 85 million tons a year. Gladstone shipped more than 58 million tons in 2009.

"The real advantage Abbot Point has over some other locations is that it’s the most northern coal port," Fish said in the interview with Bloomberg. "When you’re comparing with Hay Point, Gladstone, or Newcastle, it's either a day or two, or up to four or five days closer to the Asian customers."

Port and rail infrastructure in Queensland is being expanded as coal producers develop mines to tap global demand.

Development of the A$1.1 billion Northern Missing Link, which started last month (Map), is targeted for completion by January 2012. The 69-kilometer rail line will allow producers in the Bowen Basin, including BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Group, to ship coal through Abbot Point.

"This will open a whole new transport corridor for coal companies, giving them a huge increase in export capacity for their existing mines and for future mining developments in the region," Premier Bligh said on April 8 this year

Whitsundays News Footnote:
Hamilton Island will be in the unique position of being in the middle of the two biggest coal export harbours in the World - Abbot Point 100km to the north west, and Dalrymple Bay 100km to the south.


Sourced from Bloomberg:
Editors: Jane Lee, Ang Bee Lin.


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