Galilee Basin – Queensland’s new energy frontier

“The critical challenge for the Galilee Basin will be the administration and management of overlapping tenures,” Grahame Baker told the Australian Journal of Mining.
A senior advisor at RLMS, a Queensland based environmental, mapping and land management consultancy, Baker said the administration problem is a result of different Acts. Jurisdictions covering coal mining and UCG which come under the Mineral Resources Act 1989 and oil and gas including coal seam gas (CSG) which are covered by the Petroleum & Gas [Production & Safety] Act 2004.
“In a number of cases, title has been awarded or offered to separate coal, UCG and CSG groups over the same acreage,” he said.
This is not only a problem for the companies involved but for landholders as well as the collective longer term environmental effects and their management.
“The Queensland Government is aware of the issues but action to date has been piecemeal and very slow with no announced time scale to resolve the basic issues,” said Baker, explaining that to date critical issues have been resolved by negotiation between the resource parties concerned.
According to the Queensland Government more than 100 million extra tonnes of coal could be exported every year from Queensland with $25 billion of new projects in the Galilee Basin under consideration.
Premier Anna Bligh and Treasurer Andrew Fraser visited the area to the North of Alpha, earlier this month.
"The Coordinator-General is currently conducting whole-of-government environmental assessments into three significant projects that have the potential to create up to 13,000 new construction jobs and around 4,400 operational jobs," said the Premier.
"Waratah Coal proposes to spend $7 billion to kick-start this region with the establishment of a 40 million tonne per annum coal mining operation.
"Waratah's proposals alone could create 7,000 construction jobs and more than 1,500 ongoing jobs."
The Premier said the massive level of investment was exactly what the region needs to be a success.
Treasurer Andrew Fraser said that Hancock Prospecting is the other major player in the region and plans to spend $16.5 billion on development of its Alpha and Kevin's Corner mines.
"Coal would be transported more than 400 km by rail to a new Abbot Port terminal for export and the mines could begin shipping their product by 2013," he said.
The eastern margin of the Galilee Basin where the Permian coals are at shallow depth or outcrop has been the focus for coal mining. More recently there has been an increasing interest in underground coal gasification [UCG] while the Queensland Government in 2008 put 18 areas across the Basin up for tender for CSG. This attracted a wide interest with 67 applications being received.
“About 60 per cent of the CSG tenements have been awarded with a number of seismic programs and three drilling programs currently underway,” said Baker.
“Sixteen granted Exploration Permits for Coal [EPC’s] overlapping the Basin have been granted while there are a further 135 EPC applications overlapping the Galilee. Many of these are for UCG.”

To read the final part of this report click here.

Update: Major project status for Palmer project
Waratah Coal’s proposed $7.5 billion “China First” coal mine and infrastructure development has been boosted by the federal government granting Major Project Facilitation (MPF) status for the Central Queensland project.
Brisbane-based Waratah, owned by billionaire Queensland businessman Professor Clive Palmer, plans to build a thermal coal mine in the new Galilee Basin coal region near Alpha, west of Emerald, as part of its “China First” project.
Professor Palmer said establishing the mine and associated infrastructure will create 6,000 jobs during construction and 1,500 during operation.
Waratah CEO and president Peter Lynch said the China First development had already been declared “Significant Project” by the Queensland Government and the granting of Major Project Facilitation status was a further boost for the project.
“MPF status provides a service to support a timely and efficient approvals process for the proposed development,” Lynch said.
The proposed mine will be complemented by the Galilee Power Project, a $1.25 billion clean coal power station incorporating carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies.
Mr Lynch said a formal pre-feasibility study had been launched into constructing the initial 450MW stage of what will eventually be a 900 Megawatt (MW) clean coal power station that incorporates CCS technologies.
“It will be designed to incorporate the latest clean-coal low emission technologies so that the project is consistent with the Queensland Government’s ‘Smart Energy Policy’,” he said.
It was reported earlier that Palmer is considering an IPO in Hong Kong for his company Resourcehouse, which might include the Galilee Basin coal assets held by his private company Mineralogy.
He reportedly told Bloomberg that Resourcehouse might have the Galilee coal assets held by the joint venture of China Metallurgical Group Corporation and Mineralogy’s Waratah Coal.