The state’s Department of Environment and Heritage Protection has set an April 4 deadline for any public submissions to the December-submitted EIS.
Advanced by Linc subsidiary New Emerald Coal, the project is 17km north of Emerald and targeting 8Mtpa run of mine over a 20-30-year mine life.
While the coal mined qualifies as a bituminous thermal coal, NEC views that it could be processed to produce 6.4Mtpa of pulverised coal-injection grade metallurgical coal.
NEC is aiming to start construction late this year. Interestingly, the EIS priced in commercialisation of the project at a capital expenditure estimate of $A500 million, which is low when considering the production scope and the costs faced by other longwall construction projects over recent years.
Mining is expected to cover 31, 300m-wide panels of up to 6km in length, with the maximum surface subsidence expected to be 2.4m over panels LW101 to LW105.
In a separate environmental submission, NEC aims to develop the best option out of two potential road haul corridors to move the coal to the existing Gregory-Burngrove railway line for export through either the Hay Point or Gladstone terminals.
NEC’s EIS revealed that a fault was discovered along the western portion of the coal resource that made the company redesign the underground layout.
“The faulting has caused the coal on the western side to be deeper and therefore not practical to access,” NEC said in the EIS.
The layout is also designed to avoid causing any subsidence the Blair Athol railway line – which NEC plans to use as part of separate plans to restart the Blair Athol coal mine – and to avoid mining under the Theresa Creek.
The targeted Corvus II seam is estimated to host 310 million tonnes of resources and lies at depths of 130-370m with an average thickness of 2.6m.
The peak construction phase is expected to employ 350 people, while the mine is expected to have an operational workforce of 440.
Raw water is expected to come from a new pipeline downstream of Fairbairn Dam, while grid power is expected to come from the existing 66kV Lilyvale-to-Emerald transmission line.
