road and rail options mt m to mourilyan port, page-30

I messed both posts above up so here it is duplicated with all formatting corrected and all bits included - sorry about the repetition (insert red face smiley here :-)).

Are we making mountains out of molehills? There's a railway line there, and was upgraded in 1998 if I've read correctly. Based on the axle loads they've got they should be able to design rolling stock to cart a reasonable amount of coal down there a year I would have thought.

If they only start with a smallish (say 1 to 2 million tonnes per annum) operation, using smaller vessels that can fit into cairns harbour (50 k tonnes) they'd get up and running with relatively minimal capex.


Excerpt from their Oct 07 update below. It doesn't sound like they see any real issues with using the existing railway and cairns port so I think this concern about logistics could be jumping at shadows. Its not out in the middle of nowhere - its in an area that presents various infrastructure options.


A rail spur used to run from Dimbulah to Mt Mulligan. The formation is still in place. The tracks have been removed but could readily be replaced.

A sealed road and operating railway link Dimbulah to Cairns, which has an international airport and frequent domestic services. The railway has axle loads of 15.2 tonnes and a permitted speed of 70km per hour (and it has recently been subject to a study regarding possible upgrade, in order to better handle transport of base metals concentrates exports to the Port of Cairns).

The Port of Cairns has available dockside land that seems to be of sufficient size to accommodate rail unloading of coal and a coal storage shed. There are no minerals load out facilities at the Port, so these would have to be built. Dockside depths and the harbour channel depth suggest current maximum ship sizes of Handimax vessels (up to about 50,000 tonnes).