Today’s latest comic book from Greenpeace on the growth prospects
of the Queensland coal industry has zero credibility, according
to the state's peak minerals and energy industry body.
'Not satisfied with their February 2012 prediction that
Queensland would be exporting 944 million tonnes of coal by 2020,
Greenpeace’s 'scary monsters' unit has lifted their fanciful
prediction to 1056 million tonnes of coal exports from Queensland
ports,' said Chief Executive of the Queensland Resources Council
Michael Roche.
Mr Roche said that coal exports from Queensland over the 13 years
to 2011-12 grew by a compound average growth rate of 4.4 percent,
from 94 million tonnes to 165 million tonnes, and that in the
past five years, growth had been only 1.5 percent per annum (from
153 million tonnes to 165 million tonnes).
'So after the Queensland coal industry has managed to grow
exports by a grand total of 71 million tonnes in the past 13
years, Greenpeace would have people believe that coal exports
will grow by a further 891 million tonnes over the next
decade.
'Put another way, Greenpeace has the Queensland coal industry
growing more than six fold.
'It is simply not going to happen.'
Mr Roche pointed out that the most up-to-date credible forecasts
for Queensland coal exports come from the federal government’s
Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics (BREE) in its July 2012
report 'Australian Bulk Commodity Exports and Infrastructure –
outlook to 2025.
'According to BREE the high-range outlook for coal exports for
Queensland by 2020 is 327 million tonnes and a mid-range figure
would be 301 million tonnes.
'Who is the public to believe—the independent experts at BREE or
the people from the scary monsters unit at Greenpeace, an
organisation committed to shutting down the Australian coal
industry?'
Mr Roche said that because the Greenpeace coal export prediction
had zero credibility, it followed that their shipping volume
figures were similarly fanciful.
Mr Roche said that an independent Great Barrier Reef shipping
study to be published in the very near future would put a lie to
the Greenpeace predictions for shipping movements in the Great
Barrier Reef area.
This study has been prepared as part of the comprehensive
industry-led cumulative impact assessment study of proposed coal
port development at Abbott Point.
