The Galilee Basin project won Queensland government approval in December with then Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney saying there was potential for up to 1600 jobs in the construction phase and 1300 for operations.
The conditional federal approval, which was signed off by the Department of Environment’s assessment and policy implementation branch assistant secretary Deb Callister on Wednesday, lasts up to June 30, 2055.
However, the coal downturn means that getting those exhaustive environmental approvals is no longer enough for companies to internally sanction development.
In the case of this project there is the added complication that it is half-owned by Bandanna Energy which entered voluntary administration in September last year.
Its administrators have appointed Macquarie Capital to sell the business and ICN understands that expressions of interest were sought on July 6 with interested parties to have two months to make binding bids.
There is no guarantee that Bandanna will be sold in this difficult coal market either, with various Australian coal assets being on the market for no result this year so far.
The AMCI Group’s website was also offline yesterday although its Brisbane office remains and former Macarthur Coal CEO Nicole Hollows is still serving as the managing director of this billionaire Hans Mende-linked private coal and iron ore player.
The project is 12km southwest of Alpha and about 180km west of Emerald in Central Queensland and was estimated to have a 33 year operational life in 2014.
AMCI is proposing the project will be delivered in three stages. Stage one is the open-cut Epsilon stage where coal will be transported on the Central Western Railway for export through Gladstone. For stages two and three, coal will be transported on a common user railway to Abbot Point.
Seeney said should the project proceed, AMCI was committed to employing local people and was considering a bus-in, bus-out option for employees from Emerald as well as fly-in, fly-out options from other major regional centres.
