Once a source of pride and prosperity, a foreign-owned Australian coal mine is now a byword for debt and despair. Observers say it's also a time bomb that's set to explode on energy users.
abc.net.au/news/indian-owned-coal-mine-time-bomb-as-state-braces-for-shock/102828318In the rarefied air of investment banking, with its fine suits and fat salaries, Neil Hamilton is something of an elder statesman in Perth.
An historical mine on the outskirts of Collie, a coal town 180km south of Perth which has long been the hub of WA's electricity supply, Griffin is in dire straits and casts a pall over the state's biggest power grid.The government this week indicated it had parted ways with Mr Hamilton's small firm, Sternship Advisers.
State Opposition MP Steve Thomas said the fact that Sternship's efforts — and the taxpayers' money funnelled towards it — amounted to so little was dismally familiar. But for all worries about the costs to the state of keeping Griffin alive, an even bigger shock is rapidly coming down the line."It's the usual madness of policy," a businessman involved in negotiations over Griffin said.Last month, the body that runs WA's biggest electricity market warned about the heightened risks of supply shortages in the coming years unless new capacity was "urgently" built.
What's more, the shortage has run headlong into a squeeze on the WA gas market, where prices are now even higher than those on the east coast. It will now determine how much insurance it needs by assuming the loss of the three biggest generators.As the agency wrote last month in its 10-year outlook for the WA market, "the increasing risks of generation unavailability have informed" its decision to widen the buffer.
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