Value of Australian thermal coal exports in 2006-07 $6.8 billion; 6 per cent fall from 2005-06, as Australian dollar rises against US dollar

Private ownership of coal ports – owner wants to spend up, to boost shareholder returns, while the user wants to restrict spending to get the cheapest port charges

Leo Zussino, who ran the Port of Gladstone, and Peter Coates of Xstrata Coal would be working closely together in the next few years if Queensland’s Surat Basin coal province was opened up as a major source of exports – but they would have to agree to disagree on one thing, according to The Courier Mail (7/8/2007), p. 61).

Fed Govt calls for Aus ports to be managed by single body controlled by Commonwealth, as Qld miners lose jobs because of bottlenecks

More than 150 workers at a Queensland mine were handed redundancy notices in August, with half the job losses being blamed on an inability to ship coal because of infrastructure bottlenecks, wrote Tony Koch in The Australian (20/8/2007, p.1).