Australia sells China $60 billion of Coal PDF Print E-mail

An Australian firm, Resourcehouse, has signed a $60 Billion (AUS$69bn; £38bn) deal to supply coal to Chinese power stations. It is Australia’s “biggest ever export contract”.  Under the deal, the firm will build a new mining complex  of open cast and underground mines to give China Power International Development (CPI) 30 million tons of coal a year for 20 years.

The new mining complex will be established in Queensland. The plan also requires laying 500km (311 miles) of railway line to move the coal to the coast. The complex in the Galilee basin, to be called China First, is expected to start coal production in 2013 and will churn out some 40 million tonnes a year.
Queensland state premier Anna Bligh anticipates the project will create tens of thousands of jobs and produce multi-million dollar royalty payments for the state government. But the lucrative Sino-Australian deal will almost certainly disappoint some environmental groups, who believe Australia’s reliance on plentiful reserves of coal, both for domestic electricity generation and for export, should be reduced in favour of renewable sources of energy.
Analysts say the deal signals a thaw between the two nations, following a string of incidents in 2009 that strained relations, from the arrest in Shanghai of an Australian mining executive from Rio Tinto to the failed attempt by the state-owned resources company, Chinalco, to buy into the Anglo-Australia mining giant, Rio Tinto.
 
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