Latest News CQ the Engine Room in RL heartland
| CQ the Engine Room in RL heartland |
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| Monday, 06 September 2010 11:33 |
 We often talk about Central Queensland as being HEARTLAND for the great game of Rugby League. Over 6,000 registered junior players; 40,000 plus people actively involved in Rugby League every weekend during the season, as well as the hundreds of thousands who regularly watch the game on television all testify to the reality of the HEARTLAND tag.
People acknowledge these facts but very often the scope and magnitude of economic developments in Central Queensland are not as well known as our passion for Rugby League.
Any visit to Gladstone, the Central Highlands, the Central West, Mackay, Rockhampton or the coal centres of the Bowen Basin will absolutely amaze the uninitiated. Recently I flew over a coal port and saw the unbelievably huge scale of the coal loading. The enormity of our current resource developments has to be seen to be believed. The number and frequency of "kilometre long" coal trains hauling the black gold to ports and returning to be refilled again is truly an amazing sight. To watch the drag lines working the mines, especially at night is a sight that will live with anyone for a long time. And yet as far as our capacity to produce and deliver energy to the world is concerned, we have only just started. The future for Central Queensland energy projects and the sheer quantity of the production tonnage is so large that again it is almost impossible to grasp. A recent announcement from a relatively small producer caught my attention. The company will mine 450,000 tonnes of "bulk sample" coal for testing to interested overseas buyers. The sampling is a significant step in the $15 billion project which has over 6.1 billion tonnes of coal in the ground. When a "sample" is 450,000 tonnes, the extractable reserves involved are very large indeed. Coal is now the number one export for our country and this export activity is the basis for our wealth as a nation. It provides jobs and it secures our future and the future of our children and for their children. For the year ending March 2010, over 201 million tonnes of coal was produced and exported from Queensland with the vast majority originating from Central Queensland. A new product in the world energy market is liquid natural gas or LNG. A Gladstone based LNG company recently signed an export deal with a Japanese company which could be worth over $20 billion and will support over 8,500 jobs. This is only one of many LNG projects announced recently with most of the LNG reserves, treatment works and export facilities located in Central Queensland. The city of Gladstone is expected to at least double in the near future and much of this growth is due to the LNG boom. Central Queensland is thriving and our future is assured. As jobs are created in Central Queensland, we will experience the population growth and improvements in liveability that accompanies these developments. We deserve our own NRL Club. Get on line at www.cqnrlbid.com.au and join as a BID MEMBER or CORPORATE PARTNER |