Elephant in the room

I was fortunate enough to attend a CEDA breakfast today (and even picked up the door prize!)with the key topic being Infrastructure and mainly concerning ports around Western Australia. There is a huge amount going on in many places with plenty of decent cooperation, investment and leadership from both the Feds and the State Government along with the likes of OPR in reference to the new $4bn port of Oakajee and associated rail. In reference to this project the port is vital to provide access to the markets for the new iron province. Being magnetite this ore will need plenty of processing and that needs power. The port itself needs only around 25mw but there is no power, as yet, for the miners and one suggestion today was that they'd need gas but wait, there's a shortage of domestic gas. Throw the grave uncertainty re the Coolimba Power Project and the elephant in the room is certainly the lack of power for the region and the frightening thing is that the equation of mines, processed ore, port facilities and shipped product is all resting on there being the power to make it happen;it seems it must not speak its name. Something of a concern with approximately A$700m of taxpayers money and A$3.3bn of investors money to be invested. Cheers, Jonathan.