We recently assisted Queensland’s Capricorn Conservation Council with a submission relating to the economic assessment of the Kevin’s Corner Coal project proposal.  The economic assessment of the project, by consultants Economic Associates, fails to provide cost benefit analysis to evaluate if the project is in Queensland’s best interests.  Given our recent exposure of $3.5 billion dollars worth of errors in similar assessment in NSW, proponents should be showing strong cost benefit analysis if local communities are to back their projects.

Furthermore, the authors used Input-Output modelling to estimate the impacts of the mine.  This is inappropriate as IO models lack resource constraints and assume fixed prices, leading to the invariable overstatement of a project’s value.

Read our full report: Ecolarge 2011 Kevin’s Corner submission FINAL.0