The Bowen Basin covers an area of over 60,000 square kilometres in Central Queensland running from Collinsville to Theodore.

These mines supplied mostly thermal (steaming) coal to a domestic market; the Railway Department was a major customer.

The success of mines depended on whether the coal was suitable for firing boilers and on their proximity to a railway line.

[1] Intensive exploration of the Bowen Basin coalfield began only after the crisis in the base metals industry due to falling prices from 1907.

Tests on the Bowen River Coal Company's lease in 1912 and 1913 sparked a rush to the field.

However, the election of Queensland's first stable Labor government led in August 1915 to Cabinet refusing the private applications and reserving the 6.4 square kilometre area involved for State operations.

Construction of the 789 kilometres of railway took five years and the delay had exhausted most of the speculators long before the line opened in 1922.

At the same time, by the end of 1919, a further nineteen leases had been forfeited to the State for non-payment of rent, and the surviving syndicates had amalgamated to form the Bowen Consolidated Coal Mining Company which established the Bowen Consolidated Colliery in Scottville.

[4] The Goonyella railway line is the main route for exports of coal via Dalrymple Bay and Hay Point.

[7] Robert Logan Jack was a Queensland Government geologist who reported coal deposits in the basin in 1878.

Santos acquired the Comet Ridge coal seam gas project comprising Fairview and 4,000 square kilometres of exploration acreage in 2005 through the acquisition and subsequent merger of Tipperary Corporation's Australian assets into the Santos gas portfolio.

Following the merger into Santos’ operations on 28 October 2005 and the subsequent integration, extra compression has been brought online and additional wells connected, which has increased sales gas production by 66%.

Development during 2006 includes the construction of a new 130-kilometre pipeline from CS2 to Wallumbilla, expansion of the gas processing facilities, and drilling and connection of additional wells.

It was the first well drilled to test the late Permian coal seam gas play.