http://www.reuters.com/...
1-Hastings, China Merchants to pay $1.6 bln for Australia's Port of Newcastle
SYDNEY, April 30 (Reuters) - Hastings Funds Management and China Merchants Group have won a state government auction for a 98-year lease on Australia's Port of Newcastle, the world's biggest coal export terminal, paying a higher-than-expected A$1.75 billion ($1.6 billion).
An initial New South Wales state budget plan had valued the lease on the port terminal at A$700 million, but fierce competition for Australian infrastructure assets coming on to market has seen a steady rise in multiples paid.
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Local media have reported that other bidders for Newcastle port included Hong Kong-listed Cheung Kong Infrastructure , a consortium of New York-based Global Infrastructure Partners and Deutsche Asset & Wealth management, Macquarie and its partner China Construction, as well as a one from ATEC Rail Group and fund manager TIAA-CREFF.
"It was an incredibly competitive field," State premier Mike Baird told a news conference.
Port of Newcastle A
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Port of Newcastle B
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Port of Newcastle A-B
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http://www.theherald.com.au/...
‘‘As the world’s largest coal port, Newcastle was suffering the health impacts of air laden with coal dust. We were threatening our own future, and the world’s, through our coal exports’ fuelling of climate change.
http://www.dbct.com.au/
Located at the Port of Hay Point, Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal (DBCT), is part of one of the largest coal exporting ports in the world. The terminal operates around clock exporting thermal and metallurgical coal from Central Queensland’s Bowen Basin mines to ports around the world.
Port of Hay Point
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Hay Point and Reef
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http://www.smh.com.au/...
Great Barrier Reef on brink of devastation in relentless quest for coal
February 4, 2014
The Queensland and federal governments' mining push is a catastrophe in the making, write Helen Caldicott and Reese Halter.
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By 2030 Australia is predicted to increase its export of coal from 240 million tonnes this year to 787 million tonnes in 2030. Queensland's liquefied natural gas and coal exports are soaring in order to deliver atmospheric-warming carbon fuels to satisfy Chinese and Indian markets.
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The ports of Gladstone and Abbot Point are poised to become the busiest in the world. In 2011, the shipping industry alone increased our export trade coffers by $38 billion. In 2012, 3950 ships entered these Great Barrier Reef ports and these numbers are set to treble by 2030.
Port of Gladstone .
https://maps.google.com/...
Abbot Point
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Gladstone , Abbot and Reef .
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http://www.theguardian.com/...
Death by sludge, coal and climate change for Great Barrier Reef?
Authorities approve plans to dump three million cubic metres of dredge spoil into waters of already at-risk reef
Now the government's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) has decided to allow up to three million cubic metres of ocean bottom to be dredged and then dumped within the borders of the marine park and also the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage area.
The decision is another necessary block removed in order to liberate millions of tonnes of coal from Queensland's Galilee Basin, where miners hope to then rail it to shore and load it onto containers at an expanded coal terminal at Abbot Point. The dredging is to make way for the ships as they weave their way through the Great Barrier Reef – a wondrous icon of the blue planet that doubles as the world's most iconic coal shipping lane.
Most of the coal is destined for Asia and India, where it will be burned, releasing more greenhouse gases to warm the oceans and the atmosphere.
http://www.theguardian.com/...
Great Barrier Reef: If the fossil fuel industry made ice cream
Great Barrier Reef under pressure from dredging and climate change despite the TV claims from the fossil fuel industry
http://www.theguardian.com/...
Great Barrier Reef authority argued against dredge dumping, FOI reveals
Disposal of 3m tonnes of spoil an unacceptable risk, said draft report to environment department before permit was issued
The dredging and dumping of 3m tonnes of spoil in Great Barrier Reef marine park waters posed an “unacceptable social and environmental risk”, the authority in charge of the world heritage area wrote in draft assessments just months before it approved the permit to carry out the disposal.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) advised the environment department not to approve the dredging of Abbot Point in a port expansion, finding that both the reef itself and threatened species could be at risk if the plan went ahead in a draft submission which it says it did not send.
A) If you have any plans to someday visit the Great Barrier Reef ,
you might want to do that soon .
B) That whole thing about the coal industry being in a death spiral ?
I wish it were true .
C) Crap . I hope this doesn't make you cry also .