“Not satisfied with their February 2012 prediction that Queensland would be exporting 944 million tonnes of coal by 2020, Greenpeace’s ‘scary monsters’ unit has lifted their fanciful prediction to 1056Mt of coal exports from Queensland ports,” QRC chief executive Michael Roche said.

Roche said coal exports from Queensland over the 13 years to 2011-12 grew by a compound average growth rate of 4.4%, from 94Mt to 165Mt, and that in the past five years, growth had been only 1.5% per annum (from 153Mt to 165Mt).

“So after the Queensland coal industry has managed to grow exports by a grand total of 71Mt in the past 13 years, Greenpeace would have people believe that coal exports will grow by a further 891Mt over the next decade,” he said.

“Put another way, Greenpeace has the Queensland coal industry growing more than sixfold.

“It is simply not going to happen.”

Roche pointed out that the most up-to-date credible forecasts for Queensland coal exports came from the federal government’s Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics in its July 2012 report.

“According to BREE the high-range outlook for coal exports for Queensland by 2020 is 327Mt and a mid-range figure would be 30Mt.

“Who is the public to believe—the independent experts at BREE or the people from the scary monsters unit at Greenpeace, an organisation committed to shutting down the Australian coal industry?”

Roche said because the Greenpeace coal export prediction had no credibility, it followed that their shipping volume figures were similarly fanciful.

He said an independent Great Barrier Reef shipping study to be published in the very near future would put a lie to the Greenpeace predictions for shipping movements in the Great Barrier Reef area.