Indian miner is on track with coal rail line

INDIAN miner Adani has moved to make sure it can export coal from the Galilee Basin area by early 2016 by upgrading its arrangement with coal carrier QR National for a rail corridor from a memorandum of understanding to a feasibility study.

The Queensland government last month approved further work on two proposed railway corridors from the Galilee Basin -- one directly to the coal port of Abbot Point along a route proposed by fellow Indian coalmining company GVK, and the Adani plan for a smaller track to be built to connect with QR National's existing railway infrastructure in the Bowen Basin.iron ore crusher for sale
While successive Queensland governments have envisaged that the route along what is now the GVK proposal will carry most of the coal out of the Bowen Basin to port, there is now doubt about how quickly such a line -- which involves 500km of new railway track -- would be ready.
Adani needs to transport coal out of Australia and back to India by early 2016 to feed power stations they run there.
gypsum crusher for saleThe Adani proposal is considerably less ambitious than GVK's, involving the construction of about 180km of line running due east from the Galilee Basin to QR National's existing railway lines in the Bowen Basin.
Adani chairman Gautam Adani and QR National managing director Lance Hockridge said yesterday that preliminary work between the two companies under a Memorandum of Understanding would now move into the feasibility stage.
The study will assess rail infrastructure and haulage services for 60-80 million tonnes of thermal coal a year from Adani's proposed Carmichael Mine to the Abbot Point Coal Terminal and possibly the future Dudgeon Point coal terminal near Dalrymple Bay.
"Through preliminary work we've been doing with Adani, it became clear there was an alignment of interests in developing an integrated rail solution for their Carmichael mine," Mr Hockridge said. coal mining in india
As well as securing a large coal tenement in the Galilee Basin, Adani has also been active in infrastructure, buying Abbot Point for $1.83 billion as part of the privatisation program undertaken by the Queensland government. It is also trying to establish a new coal port at Dudgeon Point, just north of Dalrymple Bay in Mackay.
One of the main reasons for a "greenfield" track directly to Abbot Point is that it would be standard gauge instead of the narrow gauge generally used in Queensland, so it would be able to accommodate larger trains that could carry up to 20,000 tonnes of coal, as opposed to current levels of 10-12,000 tonnes.
But QR National is confident that even with the narrow gauge lines that this proposal would use, they will still be able to carry loads of about 20,000 tonnes on its tracks.