Vote of no confidence: Rio pulls out of $9 billion coal port expansion

Platts reports world number three miner Rio Tinto has withdrawn from the port expansion project at Queensland’s Abbot Point, Australia.

The $9 billion project approved by the state government in December, was designed to up the port’s coal export capacity to 385 million million tonnes – a more than sevenfold increase from the current annual tonnage.

Platts quotes a Rio Tinto official as blaming “changes in the economic environment and the commitments required to progress this option” as reasons for pulling out and adding:

“Global economic markets have shifted to a period of significant uncertainty and we continue to see both a sustained upward pressure on costs and long timeframes for regulatory approvals,” the official said.

BHP Billiton and Hancock Coal are developing two other terminals at Abbot Point as part of the expansion that envisaged a total of five new terminals to add to the current four.