THE German group Direct Invest has given the green light to a coal mine in Queensland it hopes will be a first step in $1.5 billion plans to develop an Australian clean-coal business.
The local subsidiary, Syntech Resources, said yesterday it would double its investment to $500 million in the Surat Basin mine, where it will begin construction next month.
The mine is in one of the last major undeveloped coal regions of the country, and it aims to begin exporting 1.4 million tonnes of "lower emission coal" from the second half of next year.
But as well as exporting coal, Syntech plans to turn it into a liquid fuel that can be used as a substitute for diesel, and it is backing a "clean coal to liquids" technology that could allow carbon capture and storage.
Through two separate projects in Queensland and NSW, the company said it could spend more than $1.5 billion on developing "clean coal" in the next five years.
The director of Direct Invest, Erik Schaefer, said he was confident the business was viable in a carbon-constrained economy with no need for government subsidies.
He said that since arriving in Australia in 2003 it had been clear to him that the country did not put its energy resources to full use. "We were a little bit astonished about how Australia used these vast resources just to dig them out of the ground and then export them."
Mr Schaefer said the company was still completing studies to discover how much lower the emissions were from their coal and gas-to-liquids products.
The Minister for Trade, Simon Crean, and Queensland's Premier, Anna Bligh, both welcomed the project, which will generate several hundred jobs.
Source: WA Today
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