PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The New South Wales Independent Planning Commission (IPC) has approved a A$381-million mine to be jointly developed by major Glencore and US coal producer Peabody Energy.
The United Wambo coal mine is a brownfield opencut mine combining the existing operations at Wambo opencut mine, operated by Peabody, and the coal reserves at United underground mine, owned by Glencore, which is presently on care and maintenance.
The development proposes to produce up to 10-million tonnes a year of run-of-mine coal over a 23-year mine life, and has been designed to maximise the use of previously disturbed mining areas and existing infrastructure to minimise the overall disturbance area as well as impacts.
The project is expected to deliver some A$414-million of economic benefits to New South Wales, including A$369-million in royalties over the life of the project.
The IPC noted that a number of factors had favoured the decision, including the fact that the mine site would be located on an existing brownfield site, with existing operational mining infrastructure, and that the proponents had "adequately assessed" all environmental impacts.
The IPC’s approval of the project comes with a number of conditions, including specific environmental conditions, and environmental management and reporting conditions, designed to prevent, minimise and offset adverse environmental impacts.