Davis said the Wandoan project had tenements in Queensland’s Surat Basin which were equivalent in size to the active mining area of the entire Hunter Valley in New South Wales.

“The project has a proven resource base of more than 1 billion tonnes to underpin thermal coal exports from an initial stage of up to 22 million tonnes per annum,” he said.

“The project’s massive reserve and resource base supports options to expand production very substantially to over 100 million tonnes based on a mine life of 30 years.”

Wandoan, which is moving through the feasibility stage, received federal environmental approval earlier this year.

“Further approvals will be required before we can take the construction decision and when done, will acquire additional infrastructure to open up the Surat Basin,” Davis said.

“And to this end, an environmental impact study for the Surat Basin Rail was approved at the end of last year and proposed Wiggins Island Coal terminals offer potential port capacity.

“The feasibility study into phase one of the development of Wandoan will be completed in the first half of next year and the first phase of production could be around 2015.”