THE master plan of Queensland Rail’s Mount Isa System Rail Infrastructure was unveiled on Friday. Member for Mount Isa Betty Kiernan and Queensland Rail general manager of freight systems Tim Ripper presented the plan which aims to move more along the supply chain to port.
“The region surrounding the Mount Isa system possesses some of the world’s largest deposits of copper, lead-zinc-silver and phosphate rock, and substantial deposits of other minerals,” Mrs Kiernan said.
“This province is very important to Queensland – it produces 75 per cent of Queensland’s mineral production and contributed $6.6 billion to the economy in 2006/07.”
The master plan presented options to enhance the capacity of the system to cater for low, medium and high tonnage growth scenarios.
Even under the lowest growth the annual net tonnage freighted per annum would increase from about 5 to 7.5million by 2012.
At its highest it could mean about 20 million tones of minerals would be freighted on the Mount Isa to Townville rail line each year from 2016.
Transport Minister Rachael Nolan said despite the current economic climate, long-term planning scenarios for the region aimed at catering for the anticipated growth and delivering infrastructure to support that significant development.
“Our industry stakeholders and market forecasts still predict strong future growth, which is why QR has outlined a number of rail infrastructure options to provide capacity to support our customers’ opportunities for growth,” Ms Nolan said.
“We are working with industry stakeholders to develop outcomes that benefit the entire supply chain’s potential for growth.
“While the actual demand for rail services will dictate the timing of developments, we recognise this region has tremendous potential and we need to plan together now to take advantage of both economic recovery and future demand.”
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