Regional Coal: Activists block access to Australia's main loading port
Wednesday, July 27 2005 - 01:01 AM WIB
Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior ship dropped anchor just after 6.30 a.m. today in the channel leading to the Kooragang and Carrington terminals in Newcastle harbor, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) north of Sydney, the environmental group said in an e- mailed statement. Australia is the world's largest coal exporter.
Newcastle port handles mostly thermal coal, used by utilities, from the Hunter Valley, where Rio Tinto Group, Xstrata Plc and BHP Billiton own mines. The port exported 39.4 million tons in the first half and is targeting an increase to as much as 43 million in the second half.
Coal-loading operations at the port have been disrupted because some people have breached security and climbed onto some of the coal-loading equipment, said Eileen Doyle, chair of Port Waratah Coal Services Ltd., which runs the coal-export terminals at Newcastle. She couldn't immediately say to what extent exports have been interrupted.
A spokesman for Newcastle Port Corp., couldn't immediately comment on the status of operations at the port.
New South Wales police confirmed the Rainbow Warrior was preventing the entry and departure of vessels from Newcastle coal ports, said Senior Constable Bugden, a spokesman. Twelve people have ``attached themselves'' to a coal loader and the police are negotiating with those people, he said.
At the Kooragang coal terminal, the larger of the two coal terminals at Newcastle, teams of Greenpeace activists unfurled a banner reading ``Coal fuels climate change' on a 2.5 million ton coal stockpile, Greenpeace said.
The environmental group wants the Premiers of Australia's states to agree to a target of 20 percent renewable energy use by 2020, measuring to increase energy efficiency and a levy of 10 cents a ton on coal in New South Wales to finance a fund to support a switching of industry in the Hunter Valley toward less- polluting industries. (*)