The Abbot Point terminal, owned by the Ports Corporation of Queensland and operated by an Xstrata subsidiary, is one of four Queensland coal export ports and is Australia’s most northern coal port. With a current capacity of 15Mt the facility is on the verge of undergoing an initial expansion to lift capacity to 21Mt.

Speaking at a MESCA (Mining Equipment & Services Council of Australia) briefing, business development manager Martin McAdam said the so-called stage two expansion could see capacity increase to 21Mtpa by fiscal year 2006-07 at the earliest, at a cost of $A116 million. He emphasised that agreement with users had to be reached before this expansion could kick off.

The port’s current contracts include 13Mtpa for the Newlands and Collinsville operations and 2Mtpa for privately owned Q Coal’s Sonoma mine. McAdam said an additional 4Mtpa capacity had been requested but could not be accommodated without infrastructure expansion.

Stockpile capacity has been identified as the current capacity constraint and would be one of the things addressed in the stage two expansion. Major works would include profiling of the coal stockpile area, construction of new bund row tow, and a new 6000tph stacker-reclaimer. To date design work has been completed and Voest Alpine has won the design contract for the stacker-reclaimer McAdam said.

Further expansion plans include a $25 million plan to increase capacity to 25Mt by speeding up conveyor belts but this could incur long downtimes. Doing the same expansion with reduced downtimes is estimated to cost $40 million.

McAdam said given current projections demand for additional coking coal could grow to as much as 50Mt coming out of the northern Bowen Basin by 2010. If the proposed $720 million Newlands-Goonyella rail link goes ahead, he said over 10Mtpa of capacity would be required with the port eventually needing to be increased to 40-50Mtpa.

“Stage three expansion will proceed hand-in-glove with the rail expansion,” McAdam said.

Stage three expansion would see a complete duplication of the terminal and capacity lifted to around 50Mtpa by 2008-09 at a cost of $435 million.

Water supplies and accommodation for up to 600 people are challenges that must be addressed if the port expands, he added.

MESCA is a business development association, part of the Australian Industry Group. With over 220 members and growing, MESCA provides the industry with information to assist in optimising opportunities within the mining, minerals processing and energy sector. Part of MESCA's offering is to stage 25 events annually to enable valuable networking and industry updates.