The Queensland government Wednesday awarded Adani Mining and Dudgeon Point Project Management land for a new coal port south of MacKay. The planned port would have an export capacity of 180 million tonnes.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said the government will also award land for infrastructure outside the stockyard to the port operators. She estimated that the project is worth $10 million in investments and would create about 5,000 jobs.

Narelle Pearse, chief executive of the Regional Economic Development Corp, hailed the support provided by the state government because the Mackay-Whitsunday-Isaac region needs more government investment to support the resources sector, which could not provide the needed housing and infrastructure on its own.

Construction of the two-terminal port is expected to start in 2013. The land would be 190 hectares apiece for Adani and DPPM, which is a subsidiary of the Brookfield Infrastructure Group. The two companies were selected as preferred developers of the two terminals through a tender that ended in June.

The move is part of Queensland's strategy to decongest the port and rail network in the state which slowed the development of new coal mines and limited royalties. Queensland recently invited some of the world's largest mining firms to participate in the $9 billion expansion of the Abbot Point port.

Conservation groups, however, have expressed their opposition to the Abbot Point expansion project because of the port's proximity to the Great Barrier Reef.

Queensland is the world's biggest exporter of coking coal, used for the production of steel. Currently, most of the coal are produced from Bowen Basin and exported through Hay Point.

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