At the Pacific Energy Summit 2011 in Jakarta, PESD associate director Mark C. Thurber talked about how Asian countries can strike the right balance of encouraging domestic gas demand without deterring new supply. Thurber also moderated sessions on the design of natural gas markets in Asia and the role of gas in Indonesia’s economic growth in particular.

Platts Coal Trader International
Vol. 11, Issue 67, Pages 5-6

Australia faces serious challenges over the next 20 years in maintaining its hard-won place as a leading coal exporting country and capturing new market share, according to a research paper published by Stanford University's Program on Energy and Sustainable Development April 5.

Following earlier papers on China, Indonesia and South Africa's coal industries, the latest PESD paper, entitled Australia's Black Coal Industry: Past Achievements and Future Challenges, has been written by coal industry expert Bart Lucarelli.

The paper sketches the development of Australia's export coal industry, from its shaky start in the aftermath of the Second World War amid a glut of cheap oil, to the "phenomenal success story" of today.  The renaissance of Australia's coal industry was assisted by the discovery of vast deposits of high-quality coking coal and thermal coal in Queensland's Bowen Basin and the

Hunter Valley of New South Wales respectively, along with new mining technologies and the economic expansions of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, Lucarelli said.

During the Australian coal industry's competitive phase - 1987 to 2003 - export coal prices were relatively stable, but the growth rate of Australia's coal industry slowed as Indonesia became a significant coal exporter.  Since 2003, Australia's coal industry has been in a "volatile price phase," as export coking and thermal coal prices have soared to record highs with the entry of China and latterly India into the international seaborne market, while weather events have affected supplies from coal exporting countries.

Looking to the next 20 years, Lucarelli forecasts serious challenges to the preeminence of Australia's export coal industry in the shape of infrastructure constraints, regulatory risks and under-investment in railways and ports by government-owned companies.  "The most pressing and immediate technical challenge to the black coal industry of Australia is the shortage of rail and port infrastructure to support its further growth," said Lucarelli in the research paper.

‘Chronic infrastructure shortages' Governments in Queensland and New South Wales have proposed projects for expanding their rail and port networks to support a significant increase in Australian coal exports, which are forecast to grow to 540 million mt by 2020 from 240 million mt in 2010.  "Part of the reason that chronic infrastructure shortages are likely to persist has to do with the type of technology being implemented - large rail and fixed land port systems," Lucarelli explained.  Large port and rail projects are required for economies of scale, but involve long lead times, high upfront costs and complex regulatory clearances. 

"A second reason for the chronic shortage of infrastructure has been the reliance on state-owned entities to make the necessary investments in the rail and port systems," Lucarelli said. Government-owned rail and port companies tend to be less nimble and entrepreneurial in their decision-making than the private sector, though some port and rail companies have been privatized recently - most notably Queenslandbased rail company QR National and the port of Brisbane.  Regulatory uncertainty stemming from the Australian government's stop-start policy on curbing carbon emissions and its proposed Mineral Resource Rent Tax on coal-mining profits are additional factors clouding the expansion of Australia's coal industry.  "Potential coal mining projects most at risk due to regulatory uncertainty are the massive new steam coal projects planned for the Galilee, Gunnedah and Surat basins," Lucarelli said.  Illustrating the potential for expansion within Australia's coal industry, Lucarelli said that if only two of the advancedstage projects in the Surat Basin in Queensland started production on schedule, they could add 110 million mt/year of thermal coal exports by 2015.  This is almost as much thermal coal as Australia exported for the whole of 2008, at 115 million mt. 

 

In September, Crystal Chang and Jeremy M. Menchik will join the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) as its Shorenstein Fellows for the 2011–2012 academic year. 

Crystal Chang, a PhD candidate with the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, is currently completing her dissertation on China's growing independent automotive industry. Her research examines Chinese automakers alongside historical case studies from Japan and Korea. During her time at Shorenstein APARC, she will expand her dissertation to include a comparative study of India's contemporary automotive industry, which, like China's, has experienced domestic and international success. She will also continue research that she is currently conducting about China's private energy sector, with a focus on the solar power industry. Chang holds an MPIA degree in international management from the University of California, San Diego, and a BA in international relations from Stanford University.

Jeremy Menchik, a PhD candidate with the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), is finishing his dissertation, which poses the question: what is the basis for religious tolerance in Indonesia, and why does it sometimes break down? He addresses this question through a study of Indonesian civil society and of three of the country's largest and oldest Islamic organizations: Nahdlatul Ulama, Muhammadiyah, and Persatuan Islam. Menchik has conducted extensive field research in Indonesia during the course of his graduate studies. At Shorenstein APARC, he will prepare his dissertation for publication and develop related projects on Islamic law, political tolerance, and political symbolism in Indonesian elections. Menchik holds an MA in political science from UW-Madison and a BA, also in political science, from the University of Michigan.

 

Established in 2002 through the generosity of Walter H. Shorenstein, the Shorenstein Fellowship in Contemporary Asia is an exciting opportunity for junior scholars to spend a year at Shorenstein APARC, engaging with other scholars and experiencing the world-class resources—ranging from libraries to events—that Stanford University has to offer. Shorenstein APARC looks forward to welcoming Chang and Menchik to the center in the coming academic year.

Although Muslim-majority Indonesia became a democracy more than a decade ago, no Islamist party has done well enough in a national election to lead the government there. In Indonesia, ostensibly religious politicians behave much as their secular counterparts do. Considering the unrest that has swept parts of the Arab world, are there lessons to be learned from Indonesia? Donald K. Emmerson, director of the Southeast Asia Forum, addressed this question in a talk at the World Affairs Council of Sonoma County on April 7.