CLIVE Palmer is likely to have another crack at floating off his Resourcehouse company with a $2.4 billion listing in Hong Kong.
According to the environmental impact study into the $8.3 billion Galilee Basin coal project, about 85 per cent of the funding for the project will be Chinese debt with the remaining 15 per cent to come from the Hong Kong offering.
Resourcehouse has already had three unsuccessful attempts to raise the funds and the next appears to already be running late with the EIS saying the likely timing of the float was mid-2011.
The Galilee Basin project will include two surface and four underground mines with export capacity of 40 million tonnes a year but with capacity to expand to 100 million tonnes.
The 485km rail line to Abbott Pt is also being investigated for expansion to haul up to 400mtpa which would mean 134 train movements a day or one every 22 minutes, but the prospect of cutting costs through all the mining projects using the same rail line appear dim with Waratah saying there were significant engineering and topographical differences between its project and that of the neighbouring Alpha mine owned by AMCI.
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The project is also expected to add $4.6 billion a year to Australia's exports and increase industry output in Queensland by $5.2 billion over the first five years of operation.
Resourcehouse has signed coal purchase supply agreements with China Power International, conditionally agreeing to rake 50 per cent of mine production.
"This speaks volumes for the strength and interest from China and other energy-hungry markets in developing a new, world-class, coal region such as the Galilee Basin," Waratah said.
The cumulative impact of all the Galilee Basin projects also points to significant issues for the region, including a potential wages blowout, increased housing costs and a crowding out of businesses. But there were also significant economic benefits in a region where many of the towns have little or no growth.
Co-ordinator-General Keith Davies said the scale, potential effects and complexity of approvals for the project required a rigorous EIS to consider the potential environmental, cultural and socio-economic impacts on the local community.
He said it had always been the State Government view that the final configuration of the rail corridor should have minimal impact on the existing community.
