The Queensland Resources Council (QRC) has demanded that the Queensland State Government do more to remove flood waters from the state's coal mine, saying that the reconstruction efforts rest on the maintaining of current royalty pricing in the state.

 

 QRC Chief Executive Michael Roche said he was concerned that too many people in the Queensland Government continued to underestimate the true extent of the last wet season’s impact on the coal sector and remain unwilling to take more decisive action.

 

‘Coal export numbers for May are now in and they do not make for happy reading. Coal exports in May 2011, at 12.2 million tonnes, were some 23 percent below the May 2010 level and the lowest month of May export tally for at least five years,’ he said.



Mr Roche said that before the wet season crisis, the Queensland coal industry was set to export a record 200 million tonnes or more in 2010-11, but now looks likely to fall to around 40 million tonnes short of that figure.



‘That’s coal exports of $7 billion lost to Queensland,’ Mr Roche said.

 

The demands by the QRC come as the state's damage bill has topped $6 billion, wiping an expected 1.5 per cent off the state's gross domestic product.