NEWS
THE LATEST MINING AND SAFETY NEWS AUSTRALIAN MINING PRESENTS THE LATEST NEWS FROM THE BOARDROOM TO THE MINE AND EVERYWHERE IN BETWEEN. VISIT WWW.AUSTRALIANMINING.COM.AU TO KEEP UP TO DATE WITH WHAT IS HAPPENING. HYDROGEN RAIL ON THE AURIZON FOR ANGLO for its ultra-class 290 tonne haul truck fleet – on Aurizon’s Moura (180 kilometres) and Mount Isa (977 kilometres) rail corridors in Queensland. This technology includes hydrogen fuel cell and battery hybrid power units. The Moura and Mount Isa lines run from Anglo’s Dawson metallurgical coal mine and the Gladstone Port, and the North West Minerals Province to Townsville Port, respectively.
Aurizon and Anglo American are investigating hydrogen-powered bulk freight trains to create more sustainable supply chains in mining. As Australia’s largest rail freight company and one of the country’s largest miners, respectively, the two companies saw mutual benefits in the agreement to reach their decarbonisation goals. A feasibility study will consider using Anglo American’s hydrogen power technology – already in use
WORKING WITH OTHER COMPANIES IS KEY TO ACHIEVING DECARBONISATION GOALS.
Aurizon managing director and chief executive officer Andrew Harding said this was the next step in rail freight technology. “Hydrogen offers enormous opportunity in decarbonising and continuing to improve the competitiveness of Australia’s export supply chains,” Harding said. “This is especially true for bulk products underpinning the Australian economy including minerals, agricultural products and fertilisers, industrials, and general freight.” Rail freight already produces up to 16 times less carbon emissions per tonne per kilometre than road, according to Harding, but Aurizon wants more. “Aurizon is excited to be teaming up with Anglo American on this project, particularly given their success to date in developing unique technology solutions for use in mine haul fleets,” Harding said. Anglo American has publicly stated its goal of making its mining operations carbon neutral by 2040, with Scope 3 emissions to be halved by then. Anglo American chief executive officer in Australia Tyler Mitchelson said working together with other
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industry leaders would be key to achieving these goals. “We know that we cannot achieve all of this alone, so we are working with partners along our value chains and outside our industry to find technical solutions to decarbonise,” Mitchelson said. “This collaboration with Aurizon is a great example of the power of partnerships to help address the urgent issue of climate change, while we also look to catalyse new markets to support the development and growth of the hydrogen economy,” he said.
COAL PRICES FACE STARK FORECASTS TO 2024: KPMG KPMG has predicted the decline of coal prices towards 2024 with a fall of more than 20 per cent on the horizon for hard coking coal. The multinational advisory released its quarterly coal price and FX market forecasts report for September/October 2021, the first release since the beginning of 2020 to predict a decline in coal prices. The report took a current average price for hard coking coal in the mid-$US180s per tonne. It showed this average price to remain steady in 2022 before diving to $150 in 2023 and into the mid-$140s by 2024.
According to the report, 2025 showed a slight rebound to about $150, however, fewer contributors hazarded a guess at these longerterm forecasts. KPMG fielded the forecasts of 23 separate contributors, each from various research databases and broker reports on the price of hard coking, PCI, semi-soft coking and Newcastle benchmark thermal coal. The latter three coal prices also received negative forecasts. The last time hard coking coal was forecast to decline was in the December 2019/January 2020 report, when the 2020 AUSTRALIANMINING
price of about $154 per tonne was expected to drop marginally down to $150. The report came in the wake of several major deals surrounding the future of coal. The first being BHP’s sale of its stake in BHP Mitsui Coal (BMC) for $1.8 billion to Stanmore Resources, releasing the mining major of the Poitrel and South Walker Creek metallurgical coal mines. Rio Tinto was already doing the same back in 2013, offloading the Clermont, Blair Athol and Coal & Allied assets, before later selling
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the Kestrel coal mine in 2018 for more than $US2 billion. A joint statement from more than 50 countries and organisations was signed at the United Nations’ COP26 in Glasgow earlier in November, in an agreement to transition from coal power to clean power. While Australia was not one of the dozens of parties to sign the Global coal to clean power transition statement, intentions have been made clear by the likes of BHP, Rio Tinto and Anglo American to sell out of coal mining while prices remain feasible.
