Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday April 04 2017, @10:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the where-coke-is-not-a-soft-drink dept.

News Corp's The Australian (archived copy) reports that:

Cyclone Debbie is expected to disrupt up to $US3.2 billion ([A]$4.2 [billion]) worth of Queensland coking coal exports and rob customers in Asia of access to premium coal for five weeks as landslides shut down the [Goonyella] railway system that moves half the state's coal exports.

Coke made from the coal is used for making steel in India, South Korea and Japan.

A report at ABC News elaborates:

Queensland's coking coal exports look set for weeks of major disruptions after Aurizon confirmed that some of its key rail lines had been seriously damaged by flooding associated with Cyclone Debbie.

Early reports from resources companies indicated that their mines had escaped serious damage, unlike the aftermath of Cyclone Yasi where many pits were flooded and out of production for months.

However, while the Bowen Basin's mines may be quick to return to production, many will not be able to get their coal to port and onto ships for more than a month due to flood damage to rail lines.

The worst damage appears to be to the key Goonyella rail line that connects a large number of the Bowen Basin's mines to the massive Dalrymple Bay and Hay Point coal terminals.

This line closed on March 28 and Aurizon has reported "significant landslips", with initial engineering assessments indicating that it will take approximately five weeks to repair the damage.

Additional coverage:
Australian Financial Review
Hellenic Shipping News

Further information:
about Goonyella railway
about Cyclone Debbie
about types of coal

previous story:
A Cyclone Just Left a Shark on the Streets of Australia


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:54PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:54PM (#488691)

    Maybe the USA can sell them some coal?

  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:56PM (1 child)

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:56PM (#488738)

    We probably cut the high-grade coke to enhance next quarter's sales number.

    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday April 05 2017, @01:33AM

      by driverless (4770) on Wednesday April 05 2017, @01:33AM (#488940)

      We probably cut the high-grade coke to enhance next quarter's sales number.

      Ugh, tell me about it. Only last week some fucking drug addict cut my coke with Saniflush.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @09:33PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @09:33PM (#488832)

    My thought too, I believe that the USA does have the correct kind of coal.

    I wonder if Trump tweets in on this...
          no, that would be too sensible.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @11:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @11:45PM (#488900)

      In fact, all the recent bankruptcies in the coal industry were due to mining companies making bad bets on metallurgical coal. [vox.com]
      They went all in on metallurgical coal and then China's demand for steel dropped, which killed the market.

      This cyclone will probably cause a short-lived bump in the american coal industry and all the MAGATS will give Donald Grump the credit (and then get amnesia when the bump subsides, kind of like how nobody is giving him credit for Caterpillar laying off 800 people after making nice with him [rawstory.com]).

  • (Score: 1) by Goghit on Wednesday April 05 2017, @03:26PM

    by Goghit (6530) on Wednesday April 05 2017, @03:26PM (#489172)

    Don't know about the U.S., but British Columbia considers Australia its main competitor for selling metallurgical coal into the Asian market. I can hear the drooling from here.

    I see that Australia, a continent that consists of an uninhabitable desert surrounded by a fringe of barely habitable shore produces 69% of its electricity from coal. I guess that helps explain why over the last couple of decades Australians have been electing even worse anti-science governments than Canadians.