DBCT 2006 Access Undertaking

The Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal (DBCT) is an export coal terminal for the Bowen Basin coal mining industry. It has been 'declared' for third party access under Part 5 of the Queensland Competition Authority Act 1997, which allows for the determination of fair and reasonable terms and conditions of access to the terminal.

On 20 June 2003, the Queensland Competition Authority received a draft access undertaking (DAU) for the coal handling services at DBCT. The DAU was submitted by Prime Infrastructure (DBCT) Management on behalf of DBCT Holdings.

The Authority's review of the DAU represented the first substantial review of a bulk commodity port in Australian regulatory history. As such, there was no regulatory precedent to guide the assessment of the many issues specific to access regulation of port infrastructure.

In July 2003, the Authority released a Request for Comments paper. The Request for Comments paper summarised the DAU and raised a number of issues upon which the Authority sought comments from interested parties.

On 15 October 2004, the Authority published its draft decision proposing not to approve the DAU for DBCT. On 26 November 2004, the Authority received a number of submissions in response to the Draft Decision. Given the complexity of issues involved, the Authority sought further information, and as a result Prime Infrastructure and the DBCT User Group subsequently made a number of additional submissions. On 20 April 2005 the Authority published its decision to refuse to approve the DAU. That decision set out the reasons for refusing to approve the DAU and outlined how it had to be amended in order to be approved by the Authority.

In July 2005, Prime Infrastructure (DBCT) Management changed its name to BBI (DBCT) Management Pty Ltd - or DBCT Management.

Following the release of the Authority's decision, DBCT Management and the users of the facility, represented by the DBCT User Group, entered into discussions to resolve all outstanding matters in relation to the DAU and associated standard access agreement. Because of concerns about the time being taken to finalise these discussions, on 21 October 2005 the Authority issued DBCT Management with an initial undertaking notice in accordance with s.133 of the Queensland Competition Authority Act. This notice required DBCT Management to submit a revised DAU which was consistent with the Authority's decision by 19 January 2006.

On 4 January 2006, DBCT Management submitted a draft access undertaking (2006 DAU) in accordance with the initial undertaking notice, as well as an associated standard access agreement. The Authority sought and received submissions and supplementary submissions on the 2006 DAU.

On 15 June 2006 the Authority published its decision approving the 2006 DAU.