Chairman’s Report 2018

It has been another busy year and I would like to thank Mardi for the wonderful secretarial work she does for us and also the rest of the board members for working on projects to assist Bowen and Collinsville area. A big thanks to Dave Evans for the work he has done on Urannah dam throughout the year. David has put in hundreds of hours and his knowledge and history of this project has made a big difference in making sure this study on the Urannah Water Scheme is credible and has the best chance of converting into physical structures and not another dusty report sitting in the archives.

On a local front BCE have been working on the following projects.

Urannah Water Scheme

We have achieved a number of milestones with this project this year with the project moving forward and around 80% of the work completed in delivering a Preliminary Business case. Below are dot points on achievements on this project for the year.

• Agreements reached and deed signed with state government to allow cash flow of $3M funding
• Project Manager appointed and agreement in place with BCE
• Meetings with UPA and acceptance with MOU between the parties.
• SMEC hired as Engineering consultants and Engineering reports all completed and submitted to Qld Government.
• Agreement with Initiative Capital to assist with workload and Financial modelling
• Engagement of the following to complete Business case
  • Financial & Commercial Advisor (Alex McNab)
  • Economists (PWC)
  • Legal Review (Talbot Sayer)
  • Land Valuation & Value Capture (HTW Herron Todd White Valuers)
  • Three of the five milestones have been completed. (Payment received for 2 of these, just waiting on third payment)
    • Delivery of Project Implementation Plan
    • Delivery of Strategy Business Case
    • Delivery of Engineering reports
• Stakeholder engagement underway with numerous meeting with Local, State and federal Government. Also meeting with Mines, land owners, growers etc.
• Extensive discussions with Federal politicians to raise the awareness of this project and also lobbing for further funding to take it to the next stage (EIS, Business Financial Close and Approvals.) We require a further $7M to keep the project momentum going. This process is going well and we are confident we will obtain the $7M as well further funding to start attracting an investor.
• Highlights identified so far during this process
  • UWS is a Multi User Water Project.
  • The Cornerstone for Regional Water Security and Economic Development within the Mackay, Isaacs and Whitsunday Regions
  • Development of a Water Grid linking Urannah Dam to the Proserpine and Eungella Dams.
  • Water for Agriculture, Urban, Mining, Industrial, Energy.
  • Elevated Strategic Location provides most cost efficient option for water delivery to all areas of Northern Bowen Basin Coalfields.
  • Reviewing dam build types and optimal storage size (Around 1.5 M Mega litres)
  • Cost estimates for the dam is $700M
  • Between 20,0000 to 30,000 hectares of agricultural land
  • Pumped Hydro Options ranging from 237 MW to 1021 MW

Bowen Harbour

BCE continues to take a lead role and represented stakeholders in discussions with TMR on making the Bowen Marina a safe harbour. Thanks to board members Terry Stone, Terry Must, Steve Darwen and Terry Pilcher for working on this project, we have had a great outcome. BCE allocated some funds to complete a peer review of the work TMR had completed on the extended rock walls options and as a result of this work, TMR have agreed to extend the wall further and design and cost an option which all parties are happy with. The design and costing has been awarded to SMEC and is expected to be completed in the next couple of months. TMR are confident they will have the funds to completed this work and we should see the new rock walls in place by the middle of 2019.

Prawn Farm

We have held a meeting with MBD Industries who have purchased Pacific Reef Fisheries and operate the Prawn and Cobia Farm in Ayr and also the associated hatchery in Guthalungra. MBD have a project in place to develop a new prawn and cobia farm in Guthalungra and shift the current hatchery further south to the State development area. BCE have reached out and asked what we can do to help get this project going as it will be a great employment boost for our region. BCE were able to assist with some Ergon costing and though some connections to the Ergon Board, a lump sum payment of $1.73M has been removed from the project. The other area MBD believe they will need help in is the staffing requirements once the project is up and running. We are offered to join the dots and introduced MBD to TAFE, Schools etc. I have also asked MBD to attend BCE meetings where they can discuss their project and get access to other board members to help get the project up and running.

Catalina Project

This project has also moved along this year with funding received for a business case to be completed. This was completed and presented to WRC, Tourism Whitsundays and Bowen Tourism and Business. The original business case was a fully integrated hanger, museum and visitors information centre built at the Bowen Airport. Estimated budget of $8M was required for this complete project. We did not seem to get a lot of support for the full scale project from WRC and Bowen Tourism, so we have now scaled back the project and we are working on a smaller option of Hanger and museum. This costing has come in at $3M. We are applying for grants and also lobbing State and Federal government for funding for this project. We have an agreement with the current owners of the Catalina, however we need to have a hanger to store the plane before we can shift it here and we only have until December 2019 to make this happen. After this date, it could be sold back overseas.

I would like to applaud Adani on moving forward with their project all be it a much smaller operation than originally proposed. I see this scale of operation practical and achievable and will benefit our community with staged work packages over the coming years. As production ramps up, there will be expansion projects at the port and rail operations. There is no doubt there will have to be extra passing loops on the rail system between the port and Collinsville and all of this work over the coming years will benefit the Bowen and Collinsville Communities. Opening up the Galilee basis is a huge win for extra royalties for the Qld Government and our challenge over the coming years will be to ensure we get our fare share of these royalties back into our region. It is great to see the Parliamentary Inquiry with regard to mining companies – Keeping it in the regions, identified royalties for the region as a key project. Through GW3, we will take a lead role in lobbying this. I believe it is critical now before the royalties start flowing from the Galilee Basin as once the State Government gets hold of these royalties, it will be very hard to get it back off them. We have a much better chance of getting agreement to give us something they do not currently have.

Going forward with BCE, we need to ensure we have new blood, new ideas and new enthusiasm to keep the well-respected brand name of BCE alive and valued by all parties. With this in mind, I have discussed with a number of members who else we can bring on board and tonight I will be recommending three new members which I believe can add value to BCE. They are Ashley Darwen from ADITS, Kylie McCrae form McCrae Property Group and Bastien Finet from MBD/Pacific Reef Fisheries (Prawn farm and Hatchery). As well as new members, I also believe we need to review our meeting a little and allocate time to identify projects we should be focusing on and hopefully getting members who have a passion in these areas to help facilitate some of these projects.

Thanks again for the support during 2018 and looking I am looking forward to a busy and productive 2019.

Regards

Paul McLaughlin

Chairperson Bowen Collinsville Enterprise