Port of Hastings expansion

Port of Hastings expansion was proposed following the announcement by Environmental Clean Technologies (ECT) that it would proceed with a feasibility study for its Coldry Project. ECT called for fast track planning of an upgrade of the port facilities at Hastings.

Background
Documents obtained by the Greens under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that in October 2009 the Victorian Transport Department was foreshadowing the establishment of a major coal-based export industry in the State. In a submission to Infrastructure Australia, the government agency argued that there was a need for the development of the Port of Hastings as up to 6 million tonnes of brown coal and 2.4 million tonnes of coal-based fertiliser could be exported by 2020. It also foreshadowed the production of up to 4 million tonnes of liquid fuel from brown coal.(For a copy of the document obtained under FOI see the links in the "External resources" section below).

In November 2010 a spokeswoman for Energy Minister Peter Batchelor told The Age that "there are currently no companies in Victoria that have a technically proven and commercially viable means of exporting brown coal at anything approaching the scale suggested in the report, and this is unlikely to change in the near future." The spokeswoman, Roxanne Punton, said that the state government had no plans for a coal allocation tender "at this stage".

Baillieu government pushes port expansion
Following the election of the Baillieu government in November 2010, the Ports Minister, Denis Napthine, stated that he wanted the federal government to fund the cost of a new rail line and road to Hastings. In response to the release of the National Ports Strategy, Napthine dismissed the view of the previous state government that there was no pressing need to upgrade the port and emphasised to upgrade Hastings to cater for increased container traffic. He also argued that the federal government should change the environmental assessment process for new ports to allow for faster decisions. The Committee for Melbourne also supported Napthine's plan to develop Hastings.

The cost of the development of the deep water port and container terminal was estimated in June 2010 by the Transport Department and Major Projects Victoria as $9.4 billion if developed within 10 years or $12.5 billion in 20 years. The cost of rail and road upgrading for the port was estimated to cost $5.5 billion in the 10-year development option. The Age reported that a second document by consultants Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu supported the department's estimates.

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Researching coal in Victoria
 * Victoria and coal
 * Australia and coal
 * Carbon Capture and Storage
 * Carbon Capture and Storage in Australia
 * New South Wales and coal
 * Queensland and coal
 * Coal terminals

External resources

 * Department of Transport (Victoria), Port of Hastings Development: Infrastructure Australia", October 2009. (This is Part 1 of the document - the file has been split into three to overcome file size upload limits).
 * Department of Transport (Victoria), Port of Hastings Development: Infrastructure Australia", October 2009. (This is Part 2 of the document - the file has been split into three to overcome file size upload limits).
 * Department of Transport (Victoria), Port of Hastings Development: Infrastructure Australia", October 2009. (This is Part 3 of the document - the file has been split into three to overcome file size upload limits).