Australia's Vast Coal Reserves Fuel Export Bonanza.DENVER -- Australia's vast untapped coal reserves -- including the Surat Basin The Surat Basin is a part of the Great Artesian Basin of Australia. The Surat Basin extends across an area of 270,000 square kilometres and the southern third of the basin occupies a large part of northern New South Wales, the remainder is in Queensland. region, which has the potential to become 'the Bowen Basin The Bowen Basin contains the largest coal reserve in Australia. This major coal producing region contains one of the world's largest deposits of bituminous coal. The Basin contains much of the known Permian coal resources in Queensland including virtually all of the known mineable of the 21st Century' -- offer American companies unrivalled investment opportunities through partnerships, project facilitation or direct investment. Lincoln Parker, Investment Manager at Australian government agency Invest Australia, presented a range of energy and related technology investment opportunities for U.S. firms at the Clean Coal Generation 2004 Conference, (Denver, CO) today. Already China's appetite for coal to fuel its steel and energy sectors is resulting in a bonanza for Australia's coal exporters, such as BHP Billiton BHP Billiton is the world's largest mining company.[1] Its origin is in the 2001 merger of Australia's Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP) and the UK's Billiton, which has a South African background. The result is a dual-listed company. , Xstrata and Rio Tinto Rio Tinto may refer to:
U.S. steel The United States Steel Corporation (NYSE: X) is an integrated steel producer with major production operations in the United States and Central Europe. The company is the world's seventh-largest steel producer ranked by sales (see list of steel producers). mills have also been lifting production and proposals for new plants in Brazil, India and Korea are underpinning the longer term growth picture. The China factor is the primary reason BHP Billiton last week announced plans to increase its coal production capacity to about 100 million tonnes a year by 2010. This is almost double current levels. Production at the metallurgical coal mines owned by BHP Billiton, BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance and BHP Mitsui Coal in the 2004 financial year was 58 million tonnes. Significantly, most of the new production will come from Queensland's Bowen Basin coalfields, the largest coal-exporting region in the world, where other players like Rio Tinto, Swiss mining giant Xstrata and niche player Macarthur Coal are also in the process of ramping up output to exploit booming demand and escalating prices. Australia is also taking the lead in development of clean coal technology. White Mining in conjunction with the Australian Government, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Limited, Idernitsu Kosan Co Ltd and Kyushu Electric Power Co. Inc, have developed a process that dissolves the minerals out of coal under moderate temperature and pressure conditions, without the loss of coal properties. "When UCC An abbreviation for the Uniform Commercial Code. is directly fired into a gas turbine, it is estimated that thermal efficiency is increased from around 38% for a conventional coal fired power station to approximately 53% with direct injection of UCC into a gas turbine with combined cycle," said Parker. Another example of innovation in clean coal technologies, APEL APEL A Portable EMACS Library APEL Associação Portuguesa de Editores e Livreiros (Portuguese association) APeL Asociación de Proveedores de E-Learning APEL Accredited Prior Experiential Learning has been commissioned to undertake a project that involves the design and phased construction of a world scale plant for converting coal to gas to liquids for transport fuels and chemical feedstock with the added benefit of low emissions electricity output. About Invest Australia -- USA Invest Australia is Australia's national inward investment agency, set up by the Australian Federal Government in 1997 to attract productive foreign direct investment into Australia to support sustainable industry growth and development. Invest Australia has investment advisory specialists in 11 locations around the world, including San Francisco and New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , to provide investors with on-the-ground support and investment advice. Since 1997 Invest Australia has helped a wide range of international businesses invest in Australia and, today, is currently working with companies on projects with potential investment in Australia of more than USD USD In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the U.S. Dollar. Notes: The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion. $60 billion. |
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