Back then, Australia shipped around half a million tonnes of iron ore each day; now it is over a million tonnes a day. Coal shipments have been running at a rate of around 300 million tonnes a year, at least until the recent floods. Australian capacity to export LNG is now around 20 million tonnes a year, up from around half that in 2004.
This looks like it will increase to over 50 million tonnes within five years. The rise in demand has been driven in large part by the rapid growth of key emerging market economies such as China and India.