East wandoan

The East Wandoan coal project is located in central southern Queensland's rich coal mining area of the Bowen Basin, 25 kilometres east of the town of Wandoan and 400 kilometres north west of Brisbane. The project is being developed by CuestaCoal that has Chinese state owned energy investment company, Beijing Guoli as its major shareholder. The shareholding held in CuestaCoal by Beijing Guoli is held through its wholly owned Australian subsidiary, Longluck Investments (Australia) Pty Ltd. The investment was approved by the Chinese government on June 5, 2013.

East-Wandoan Coal Deposit Extends in a South Easterly Direction 25 Kilometres From Wandoan
The East Wandoan coal project consists of three permits that have been granted by the Queensland Government and one application that is awaiting approval. The granted permits cover a total of 124 sub-blocks granted on March 30, 2010, 138 sub-blocks granted on March 28, 2011 and 115 sub-blocks granted on September 28 2012. The areas refer to a strip that extends in a south easterly direction 25 kilometres from Wandoan.

East-Wandoan Coal Project Situated in Gentle Undulating Country
The area surrounding the East Wandoan project consists of gently undulating and mainly open land that contains some patches of native vegetation. Xstrata's Wandoan coal mine is located 25 kilometres to its north east and Stanmore Coal's, 'The Range' project, that is due to commence production in 2015, is just 10 kilometres distance.

Rail Route to the Coast an Important Infrastructure to East-Wandoan Coal Mine Success
The proposed route for the, yet to be constructed Southern Missing Link railway, is to pass through the East-Wandoan Project. The Moura rail system already connects to the Barney Point and RG Tanna terminals at Gladstone. This railway is planned to link up with the Wiggins Island Coal Export Terminal, the proposed Balaclava Island Coal Terminal and the Fitzroy Coal Terminal. The new railway will facilitate Surat Basin coal deposits being further developed to take advantage of the growing demand from the export coal market. An alternative coal transport route could include a connection to the West Morton Rail System located 55 kilometres to the projects south east. This railway links to the Port of Brisbane coal terminal.

East-Wandoan Project Area a Rich Source for Energy Exploration
The East-Wandoan project area has also been subjected to exploration for coal seam gas and petroleum, as well as that of coal, for many years. There have been two coal seam gas wells sunk, four petroleum wells and 46 coal exploration boreholes drilled in recent years, besides 12 geological Survey of Queensland boreholes and surveys, as well as several hundred shallow mineral exploration boreholes. There have also been 101 incidences of coal intersections discovered in the sinking of waterbores.

Port and railway infrastructure has undergone significant upgrades in Queensland in recent years. This has been carried out to encourage the expansion of mining operations and in particular, to take advantage of the growing demand for coking and high quality thermal export coal. It is planned to carry out long term upgrades to the system to raise the capacity to 306 million tonnes a year of coal exports by 2015 and 388 million tonnes a year by 2020. Moves that can only benefit projects such as the East-Wandoan coal mining operation when construction is completed.