With Bowen Coking Coal's Burton mine threatened with closure, the Queensland government is coming under fire for continuing to charge the world's highest coal royalty rates.
Those royalty rates forced BCC to raise funds to keep itself alive.
The company managed to turn things around but the royalties still bit.
Speaking at the Sydney Mining Club's 300th luncheon, BCC executive chairman Nick Jorss said the company went through its own existential crisis due to those royalties.
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Of course, Queensland premier David Crisafulli and treasurer David Janetzki have their work cut out if they want to change the royalty rates.
Normally, it is a fairly easy process. Sadly, former Queensland treasurer Cameron Dick made things much harder on the way out.
One of his last acts as treasurer was to enshrine those higher royalty rates in law.
That means it will take an act of parliament to alter the royalty rates.
Battle royalty
Coal Australia chief executive officer Stuart Bocking said the Queensland government needed to work with Queensland's coal mining communities to keep mines open and allow investment to flow into the state, to prevent other Queensland mines facing a similar fate.
"Former treasurer Cameron Dick has set up Queensland to fail with a politically inspired cash grab that has left regional coal jobs reeling under the weight of the most punitive royalty regime anywhere in the world," Bocking said.
"Since the 2022 royalty hikes, we have already seen the closure of the Bluff mine at a cost of 300 jobs, the cancellation of the Valeria coal project with 1250 jobs that never eventuated, and even BHP has paused new investment in the Queensland coal sector – now the Burton mine faces an uncertain future.
"We urge the Queensland government to act now before other mine operators face similar decisions to those at Burton.
"Coal mining communities deserve stability, and miners should have certainty that their hard work won't be punished by uncompetitive policy settings."
Jorss founded Coal Australia.
