Queensland's Phosphate and Coal Billions
Posted by Big Gav in coal, fertiliser, phosphate, phosphorus, queensland
The Australian has an article on plans to expand Australian production of phosphate rock for the Indian market, noting recent price rises have finally made exploiting reserves in northern Queensland economical - Gutnick phosphate operation to fertilise Indian economy. Interesting to note that George Soros is getting in on the act.
FORMER diamond tsar Joe Gutnick has teamed up with India's largest fertiliser supplier and investment icon George Soros in a proposed phosphate operation in northwest Queensland. Under a deal announced yesterday in Brisbane, the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative, or IFFCO, will inject slightly over $100 million into Mr Gutnick's plan to ship phosphate from the company's four holdings around Mt Isa. Reserves total a billion tonnes. ...
Dr Awasthi said India had a growing need for fertiliser, and the project should be able to supply 5 million tonnes of rock phosphate annually. ...
He said that at this stage the plan was to export the phosphate from the port of Karumba at the bottom of the Gulf of Carpentaria, but the company was still looking at "other transports which involve other ports".
The phosphate deposits in the northwest of Queensland have been known since the 1970s, and a pilot plant was built in 1974. But the project has only recently become viable because of a lift in phosphate prices. Last year world prices hovered around $US50 a tonne, the level it had been at for most of the past 30 years. Since then, decisions by the US and China not to export phosphate rock have pushed prices up to $US300 a tonne, with spot prices up to $US400.
The Australian also has an article on the ever-expanding Queensland coal industry and the intense interest in remaining high quality deposits - Deal signals BHP confidence in energy.
BHP Billiton's decision to outlay a premium price for an undeveloped coal asset in Queensland's prolific Bowen Basin has been interpreted as a sign of the mining giant's mounting confidence in the outlook for the sector. It is believed that as many as 60 parties initially showed interest in either buying or financing New Hope Corporation's New Saraji project, which BHP and alliance partner Mitsubishi plan to acquire for $US2.40 billion ($2.46 billion). While some analysts described the price tag as expensive, industry observers agreed that it further demonstrated the feverish demand for a diminishing supply of high-quality coal assets in the region.
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