Queensland's coal companies will push ahead with a plan to try to buy the railway lines that carry their product to ports despite the Bligh government ruling out such a measure. All 14 of the largest coal companies operating in Queensland met in Brisbane yesterday at a meeting chaired by former NSW premier Nick Greiner and resolved to form a consortium that would make a bid for the railway lines but not the trains and coal carriages that run on them.

BHP Billiton, the world’s largest miner, said on Monday that it had moved a “significant portion” of its coking coal sales for 2010 to “shorter term market based pricing”, breaking away with the tradition of annual contracts and mutually agreed prices. “These settlements reflect the company’s commitment to achieving market clearing prices over time across all its bulk commodities,” the company said in a statement. It said it had reached agreements with customers in Japan, China, India and Europe.

Queensland state may book “hundreds of millions of dollars” in damages, Premier Anna Bligh said today, after record flooding halted production at coal mines and disrupted exports.... Daily rainfall exceeded 100 millimeters (4 inches) on March 1 and March 2. Xstrata Plc and Peabody Energy Corp. halted production at mines and declared force majeure.

In a recent speech RBA Deputy Governor Ric Battellino commented that the present resources boom may be the longest running of the past 160 years.... Much of the discussion of the impact of the boom has focused on the benefits for the resources sector. However, when commentary has shifted to the impact on the rest of the economy it has tended to take on a more negative tone, with a focus on the various stresses the economy faces. This unduly negative focus misses the broader effect that the resources boom is having on the Australian economy and the prospect for strong growth in the years ahead. 

Australian coal producers have signalled they expect hefty increases in the price of the nation's top export, as contract negotiations with Asian buyers heat up. Macarthur Coal and Whitehaven Coal yesterday offered bullish views on China-led bounce in demand for the fuel as they handed down half-year results. Amid reports of BHP Billiton seeking price rises as high as 55 per cent for coking coal, or $US225 ($252) a tonne, Australian producers could receive similar gains from buyers in the key markets of Japan, Korea and, increasingly, China.

Reserve Bank deputy governor Ric Battelino says the global financial crisis is history and Australia's "very big" mining boom is here to stay. Speaking to the Sydney Institute last night, Mr Battelino said the current mining boom could last longer than previous ones - possibly for more than 15 years - because of demand from China and India. "The start of this boom can be dated from around 2005," he said.

Coal shipments from Australia’s Newcastle port, the world’s biggest export harbor for the fuel, rose 15 percent last week while the length of the queue of vessels waiting to load shortened. The volume exported in the week ended 7 a.m. local time today climbed to 2.13 million metric tons from 1.85 million tons in the preceding period....Rio Tinto Group, Xstrata Plc and BHP Billiton Ltd. are among mining companies that export the fuel from the harbor.

West Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart is planning a $2.2 billion private Queensland coal railway that will offer third-party haulage from the state's Galilee Basin and will be able to haul well beyond the capacity of the mines she is planning. The move comes as Mrs Rinehart competes with mining magnate Clive Palmer to progress plans to build the nation's biggest coalmines near the small Queensland town of Alpha at a cost of more than $7.4bn each.