One man's dream to connect the Pilbara in the west to the Bowen Basin in the east by 3,300 kilometres of rail is being scrutinised by a Senate committee this week.
The plan is to build a rail line between Newman in Western Australia and Moranbah in Queensland to manufacture steel, with five mills on either end that are close to iron ore and coal mines.
The proposal is for the steel slabs that are produced to be exported by ships at Port Hedland and Abbot Point.
The background of the founder of Project Iron Boomerang (PIB), Shane Condon, is in the meat and seafood industries.
He established East West Line Parks Pty Ltd to build the rail line, working on it since 2005.
"The world's biggest seaborne export coking coal fields and iron ore fields are conveniently in one continent, one country," Mr Condon said.
"We needed to connect those."
He said the idea behind Project Iron Boomerang hailed back to his school days when he learned about Australia's resources sector.
"It's an old idea that originates from … the Queensland social study books when I was [at school] in the 1950s," he said.
While Mr Condon said it was a "practical" project rather than an ambitious one, and it would be expensive.
He said the company was working to shore up investors.
"We are now negotiating letters of intent deed contracts with sovereign fund governments that want to invest," he said.
"It's $US7 billion ($10.45 billion) for one steel mill, which will have a share in the railway line because they're taking the initial risk.
"Each country can have a maximum investment of two steel mills, 20 per cent, which complies [with] the Foreign Investment Review Board."
Inquiry to probe viability
The Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee is to examine the viability of PIB this week.
It has been scrutinising environmental impacts, the employment generated, impacts on local Aboriginal communities, and the resources required to build a rail line of that scale.
Australian Mining Cities Alliance chairperson and Mount Isa City Council Deputy Mayor Phil Barwick is making a submission in support of the project.
"There's a lot of benefits for the sustainability of our communities and our mining cities," he said.
At the hearing, Mr Barwick said he would be proposing to move the rail line to go through Mount Isa and Tennant Creek.
"Mount Isa was one of the premier inland industrial cities that could take one or two blast furnaces and steelmaking plants," he said.
"If you include the line from Mount Isa to Tennant Creek they've got a link to the Darwin port as well.
"This would add to the viability of such a railway line."
In a written submission made to the senate committee in October last year, Karlka Nyiyaparli Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC (KNAC) raised concerns about a lack of consultation.
The organisation is the registered native title body corporate for the Nyiyaparli Native Title Determination in WA.
In the document, it stated KNAC had significant concerns with "the paucity of information provided, the lack of consultation undertaken to date by the proponent and government, the short timeframe for submissions, and the lack (or absence) of detailed social, cultural, and environmental impacts assessments or studies relating to the proposal".
Value-adding from raw wealth
Australia is the world's largest exporter of iron ore and metallurgical coal, commodities worth billions of dollars to Australia's economy.
Mr Condon believes exporting steel slabs will bring in even more revenue.
"It's an incredible opportunity for the future of Australia to value-add," he said.
"By value-adding it we tax that activity."
According to peak industry body the Australian Steel Institute, about 5.3 million tonnes of steel is made domestically each year and employs more than 100,000 people.
James Vaughan, a metallurgical engineer and associate professor at the University of Queensland, said steel production has been declining over the past two decades and now Australia was a net importer of steel, meaning more steel comes in than goes out.
Dr Vaughan said a lot of resources were put into exporting iron ore and metallurgical coal only to be imported as finished steel, and this project could fix that.
"Doing that [manufacturing steel] closer to the source of those raw materials makes a lot of sense, logistically," he said.
Aiming for carbon neutrality
Steel is a large producer of carbon dioxide emissions, and questions have been raised in a written submission from the Wide Bay Burnett Environment Council about how Australia would meet its Paris Climate Agreement target of net zero emissions by 2050 if the project went ahead.
But Mr Condon said proponents plan to make the project carbon neutral.
"We'll be fully accredited," he said.
"We already have the technology and this will be exposed in the senate committee hearings."
"Green steel", as it's known, is made using hydrogen rather than coal, but it is unclear if the project will rely on hydrogen to make steel, as well as coal, to meet Mr Condon's net zero proposal.
Dr Vaughan said it was unlikely given the infrastructure required.
"There are some operations which practice that, but it's a very, very small amount of total steel production," he said.
"There are significant technical, economic challenges to those types of processes."
The senate committee will complete a report by May 11.
