The government approved the second-stage development plans back in July 2010, allowing the Narrabri mine to start longwall mining and ramp up to 8 million tonnes per annum of production.

However, the Whitehaven-led joint venture sought a small modification to this planning consent back in November.

The proposed modification was to remove the need to develop subsidence management plans for second workings by amending the extraction plan to cover these requirements.

The NSW government noted that the modification was “largely administrative” in nature and found that it was consistent with the approved project.

The project was approved and signed off by the Department of Planning’s deputy director-general of development assessment, Richard Pearson, on March 30.

He was acting as a “delegate for the planning minister”.

The previous planning minister, Tony Kelly, is no longer in this role as the Labor party was soundly defeated in the March 26 election.

The O’Farrell government announced its new cabinet on April 3 and the first meeting of this cabinet decided to scrap Part 3A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act.

O'Farrell said transitional arrangements would be put in place to deal with the more than 500 Part 3A applications already in the system.

He expects about half of them to be referred to the Planning Assessment Commission for determinations.

Whitehaven put itself up for sale in October and this sales process is ongoing.

The Narrabri mine in the Gunnedah Basin is expected to produce its first longwall coal in December.

The JV behind Narrabri consists of Whitehaven (70%), Upper Horn Investments (7.5%), Electric Power Development (7.5%), EDF Trading (7.5%), plus Daewoo International and Korea Resources Corporation (7.5%).