The EA approval comes after a six-year greentape journey which involved more than 500 consultants and around 300 collaborative scientific studies.

“This is one of the most significant milestones in the development of our Galilee Basin coal projects to date, which will create one of the most significant pieces of regional and economic developments Queensland has seen for decades,” GVK said.

“This milestone takes us one step closer starting our proposed Alpha mine, which will create around 4,000 jobs during its three year construction and more than 1,800 jobs over its 30 plus years of operation.

“We’ve invested tens of millions of dollars and thousands of man hours assessing, planning and engaging with communities to reach this point.”

While GVK, a company part-owned by billionaire Gina Rinehart, has both state and federal environmental approvals, the giant thermal coal project still faces legal challenges.

“Now that we have our Environmental Authority for Alpha, our key focus is to continue advancing the project to a point where construction can start.

“Once we finalise the infrastructure joint venture with Aurizon and the regulatory bodies have addressed litigious challenges to approvals, we will execute coal off-take agreements before finalising all financing arrangements.

“The proposed Alpha mine has a JORC resource of 1.8 billion tonnes, with 1.2 billion tonnes of reserves and will be a full open cut mine producing around 32 million tonnes per annum for 30 years.”