from The Australian:

Brisbane mining company pulls plans to build US river port

A BRISBANE-BASED company proposing a coalmine seen as a litmus test in the battle between farmers and miners on Queensland’s Darling Downs has been pressured to withdraw plans for a port in the US.

Ambre Energy has scrapped an application to build a coal port on the Columbia River in Washington state after secret company documents emerged suggesting it deliberately misled officials about the size of the project.

Environmental groups say, and Ambre denies, the company had told local authorities it planned to develop a relatively small port, capable of handling 5.7 million tonnes of coal a year.

But it was later discovered Ambre had secretly planned to develop the biggest coal port on the US west coast on the site, a facility up to 10 times the size publicly proposed.

However, Ambre said the group had not acted inappropriately, and company documents had been used “maliciously” by environmental groups opposed to the port.

The start-up has yet to begin any mining operations but its plans centre on the northwest of the US — where it plans to buy operating mines and to export coal to Asia — and the Felton Valley on the Darling Downs.

Ambre intends to develop a 2000ha coalmine and a petro-chemical plant in the Felton Valley, about 30km west of Toowoomba, in a proposal opposed by many local farmers.

Ambre’s proposal for that mine is the only current application before the Queensland government for a coalmine on the inner Darling Downs.

But that application is being closely watched because the government has granted exploration permits over the vast majority of the region, which farmers and community groups fear will lead to many more mines being approved.

In November last year Ambre’s US arm, Millennium, was granted approval to build a coal port capable of handling 5.7 million tonnes per annum at Longview, in the south of Washington.

That project, because of its small size, required minimal environmental factors to be taken into consideration and was approved by Cowlitz County.

But a series of internal company documents that emerged subsequently — obtained under legal processes by an environmental group — showed Millennium had planned to develop a port handling 20 million tonnes a year on the site “in the short to medium term”.

“In the longer term Ambre plans to develop a 60 million (tonnes per annum) coal terminal which will be the largest coal terminal on the North American west coast,” the document said. In the months before the approval an email between Ambre executives said “any expansion plans . . . should not be made available to any outside third-party”.

In another email written just weeks before the original approval, a senior Millennium executive wrote to colleagues that the company should deliberately wait at least two months before proposing an expansion.

If this did not occur, “Millennium will be perceived as having deceived the agencies” and the company’s “good reputation will be lost overnight”.

Washington Department of Ecology spokeswoman Janice Adair said Millennium had engaged in “piece-mealing” where an application for a smaller project was made followed by amendments that substantially increased the size of the project.

Such approaches meant full approvals processes could be circumvented.

Millennium chief executive Ken Miller said the company had made no statements “this was only going to be a five-million-tonne facility” and “that is something people have read into it”.

Ambre chief operating officer Michael van Baarle said the company would now conduct a full environmental impact statement and reapply for a project that could handle “a lot more than 5.7 million tonnes”.

“If we are going to have a battle, it’s going to be over something significant,” he said.

E. Fudd