'Ports Minister Denis Napthine said that while stevedoring at...

'Ports Minister Denis Napthine said that while stevedoring at Hastings in Western Port had ceased for the time being, work on the 10- to 15-year expansion project to turn it into a complementary container port to the Port of Melbourne had already started.

The Port of Hastings Development Authority, established this year, has started doing early assessment and planning reports for the project - which some experts say is likely to cost more than $12 billion.

''The government is proceeding as planned, exactly on track, with the plans to develop Hastings as a new container port for Melbourne and Victoria,'' he said. ''Any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong.'''


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the 10-15 year estimate in this article before a commercial volume of BCE can get out of the LV through Hastings is the key part for MNM holders, and explains why BM is the first project to be developed by exergen.

If exergen could get BCE out of the LV in time to feed the two new Tata Power 1600 MW power plants set to start consuming imported thermal coal (or BCE) from around 2017/18 then they would, and BM would be redundant.

But Tata need to secure enough BCE to fire up two new 1600 MW power stations many years before Hastings will be able to get BCE out of the LV.

Which is why the new managers at the BM project are exergen, and MNM has gone gold and CSG drilling in Qld.