Donaldson Coal subsidiary Newcastle Coal wants to continue and extend the operations at Tasman to extract up to 1.5 million tonnes of coal per year, an increase from the current approved limit of 975,000tpa.

It also wants to develop new pit top facilities including coal handling, administration and service infrastructure and continue to transport coal by road to the Bloomfield coal handling and preparation plant for processing and dispatch.

The proposed extension is expected to create 40 additional mining jobs, the New South Wales Department of Planning said in a statement.

“The department required the proponent’s environmental assessment to specifically address issues including biodiversity, heritage, traffic, noise and blasting, as well as surface and ground water impacts,” it said.

Donaldson Coal is currently mining within the Fassifern seam at the Tasman underground mine in accordance with its existing development consent.

The mine is a bord and pillar operation, which uses continuous miners for first workings and secondary partial extraction.

The extension project would involve the continuation of mining of the Fassifern seam using bord and pillar mining methods with partial extraction. It would also involve mining of the West Borehole seam using bord and pillar mining methods with a combination of total and partial extraction.

The West Borehole seam is the basal coal unit of the Newcastle coal measures and is located approximately 175 m below the Fassifern seam.

The layout and design of bord and pillar panels within the proposed areas would be subject to the subsidence assessment, environmental assessment and Donaldson Coal’s mine planning process and would be detailed in the environmental impact statement.

Replacement underground mining equipment would be required over the life of the project in order to maintain production capacity.

Donaldson expects that if the project is approved, the development consent would include the approved Fassifern seam workings (including current and previously mined areas), as well as the proposed West Borehole seam workings.

Mining activities would continue to be undertaken 24 hours a day, seven days per week.