<span class="" id="parent-fieldname-description"> Recent struggles in the planned expansion at Queenslandâs Abbot Point coal terminal are just part of a growing trend of boom-time infrastructure decisions being reconsidered along Australiaâs east coast. </span> <p>Citi and Morgan Stanley, two potential financiers for miner Adani’s plans to expand at Abbot Point, have reportedly shied away from the project in recent weeks.</p><p>Adani plans to expand its Abbot Point terminal, T1, and also wants to build a new coal terminal adjacent to it, labelled T0.</p><p>The Indian miner needs Abbot Point expanded so it has the capacity to export new coal from its Carmichael coal mine and rail project, which it hopes will produce as much as 60mtpa of coal for export.</p><p>But the port expansion project – which already caught a lot of unwanted public attention for plans to dredge roughly 3 million tonnes of seabed – could be in dire straits if banks continue to shy away from an industry struggling through a severe price slump.</p><p>Adani has said it will sell some of its stake in T1 to deliver the expansion projects, but the value of that sale could also decline if the coal price stays down.</p><p>At Abbot Point, aside from Adani’s planned T1 expansion and construction of T0, there are shelved plans from BHP to build a T2 terminal, and plans from GVK Hancock to build a 60mtpa T3 terminal – to service capacity from its Alpha project in the Galilee Basin – are still in the pre-feasibility stage.</p><p>The slow progress at the Queensland bulk port is reflective of the slow progress in the east coast coal industry itself. It’s a factor Lance Hockridge, chief executive of the Queensland coal region’s biggest rail haulier, Aurizon, says will echo through to his business in coming years.</p><p>“The reality is the go-ahead for the Galilee will be some years down the track,” Hockridge told investors in October.</p><p>Specifically, he said, current market conditions will not “be a trigger” for Aurizon’s plans to build the rail line GVK Hancock needs for its Alpha project any time soon.</p><p>Thermal coal prices have been slashed from their peak of roughly US$140 a tonne in 2011, to roughly half that now.</p><p>With that considered, it should come as no surprise that a big port expansion like the one at Abbot Point is struggling. It comes as even less of a surprise when other, similar examples are considered.</p><p>Projects including the Wiggins Island Coal Export Terminal (WICET), Newcastle’s T4 Terminal, and Dudgeon Point Coal Terminal are all examples of boom-time decisions that have either been slowed, paused, or cancelled entirely, thanks to the price collapse.</p><p>Dudgeon Point Coal was cancelled by developer North Queensland Bulk Ports (NQBP) in June this year.</p><p>Declared a project in October 2011, Dudgeon Point was originally to be a $10 to $12bn, 180mtpa capacity port with two export terminals, six rail loops and a complex of associated facilities.</p><p>But in June, NQBP’s then-CEO Brad Fish pulled the plug due to an industry-wide downturn in the coal market.</p><p>The Port of Newcastle, already the world’s biggest coal exporting location, was looking to expand its own capacity with the development of a T4 terminal.</p><p>But since Port Waratah Coal Services, the terminal’s proponent, first made its initial major project application – in December 2010 – the project has only achieved the feasibility study stage, and is yet to receive environmental approval.</p><p>The T4 project has struggled with kickback from locals, who are concerned about the  potential community and environmental impacts a new terminal in their local area could have.</p><p>WICET, which was formulated in the peak of the mining boom by a consortium of eight coal producers (of whom one – Bandanna Coal – is now in receivership), has been in the headlines repeatedly over the last twelve months over delays, and its potential failure in the face of sinking coal prices.</p><p>The remaining proponents of WICET are confident that they will send out first coal from the facility in the next calendar year.</p><p>“WICET will service its debt at much lower tonnage levels throughput than it currently is forecasting,” consortium member Cockatoo Coal’s managing director Andrew Lawson said in October.</p><p>“The port is virtually built. It’s going to go ahead. WICET’s going to happen.”</p>
