QR and BBI on defensive as ports debate heats up

<p>Port and rail operators have attempted to stem the tide of political comment and pledges over strained export supply chains, with Queensland Rail (QR) and Babcock &#38 Brown Infrastructure (BBI) at the forefront.</p> <p>"We have (at Dalrymple Bay) a regulatory system in place now that is a well developed system," BBI chief operating officer Jeff Pollock told the <em>Australian</em> newspaper today (Friday, April 13) after the prime minister, the treasurer and the transport minister pushed the idea of a national ports regulator.</p> <p>"The worse thing for us would be to mess with that system by bringing in uncertainty over what would replace it.</p> <p>&#8220If you replace it and bring in uncertainty, that will act as a deterrent to expansions."</p> <p>As prime minister John Howard acknowledged earlier in the week, Mr Polllock put the bottlenecks down mostly to the unforeseen scale of the boom in China and the demand that came with it.</p> <p>This did not stop coal exporters calling for greater capacity, despite QR chairman John Prescott saying yesterday in the <em>Courier Mail</em> that improvements were being made.</p> <p>"I think we have to keep our focus on it and we have been talking a lot to the coal companies and yes, they have got frustrations, but we are putting in a lot of new infrastructure and I think that will continue," he said.</p> <p>Meanwhile, a shipbroker offered his take on port issues.</p> <p>Alistair McKay, of Simpson, Spence &#38 Young, told the <em>Australian</em> the queues could be halved if miners organised shipping and tailored it to mine, rail and port capacity.</p> <p>"It is eminently avoidable," Mr McKay said. &#8220They are just force-feeding the port.&#8221 </p> <p>Mr McKay said there was room for miners to be braver.</p> <p>"They’re just scared of losing buyers, and shipping is an unknown market to them," he said. </p> <br />