Photo by: Reuters
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Queensland Resources Council (QRC) has urged the state government to invest in productivity-enhancing infrastructure to allow potential resources projects in the state to proceed.
QRC CEO Michael Roche said in a submission to the government on how funds from the Strong Choices Investment Programme could be allocated, that the international competitiveness of the resources sector relied upon the availability of high-quality economic infrastructure ahead of demand.
“Ports, rail, roads, airports, dams and power fall into that category, and so does social infrastructure to attract workers, their families and support industries to regional communities.
“These are essential to the competitive positioning of Queensland producers on global cost curves and incremental growth,” Roche said.
In the QRC’s latest State of the Sector report, Roche noted that for Queensland to take advantage of demand growth from Asia, industry and government had to consider how best to provide infrastructure ahead of demand, and at the lowest cost.
“While there is no shortage of resource projects on the books, at either the publicly announced, feasibility or committed stages, many are uneconomic because of industry’s obligation to adopt almost all the risks and costs associated with them.
“This contrasts with the thrust of the government’s soon-to-be-launched Resources Q initiative, a thriving partnership between industry and government. Arguably, that should extend to a reasonable sharing of costs and benefits from resources investment.”
Meanwhile, Roche pointed out that the resources sector was expected to generate more than A$8-billion in royalties and around A$160-billion in export earnings to Queensland between 2015 and 2016.