B.H.P. to join boom in coal export

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33665, 15 October 1974, Page 25

B.H.P. to join boom in coal export

(New Zealand Press Association —Copyright) BRISBANE. The Broken Hill Proprietary Company, Ltd, lias well advanced plans to join the Queensland export coal boom, which has been fired by the serious shortage of coking coal in the Japanese steel industry.

The Queensland Minister for Mines (Mr Camrn), said that B.H.P.’s LeichhardJ; colliery in the Bowen Basin was likely to be exporting coal to Japan within 12 months. ‘‘B.H.P. is already mining coal at Leichhardt for use on its own steel mills, and with the company planning to increase production to 8,000 tonnes within the next nine months it could achieve markets in Japan for some of this coai. B.H.P. has already sent samples from the colliery to Japan for analysis, and has announced plans to produce 2.5 m tonnes of coal at the Leichhardt Colliery in the first stage of its coal production project in the Blackwater area, and at Cook Colliery.” The Minister said that the potential of Queensland coal had been highlighted in recent months by the demand for the project from the Japanese i steel industry. The Japanese jsteel industry estimated its : annual coal requirement from

1 Australia during the 1975-80 period would total 66 tonnes. It had been estimated Japan would be taking more than one third of its total coking coal requirements from Australia by 1980.