{"id":1131816,"date":"2019-08-09T17:10:10","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T22:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=998988"},"modified":"2019-08-09T17:10:10","modified_gmt":"2019-08-09T22:10:10","slug":"mothballed-dartmouth-coal-mine-in-nsw-can-restart-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1131816","title":{"rendered":"Mothballed Dartmouth coal mine in NSW can restart operations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The mothballed\u00a0Dartbrook\u00a0coal mine\u00a0in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia\u00a0can restart operations, the state\u2019s\u00a0Independent Planning Commission ruled on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The mine was placed on care and maintenance in late 2006 because of operational difficulties and lower coal prices.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Dartbrook&nbsp;was owned by Anglo American until the miner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/anglo-american-sells-nsw-coal-mine-for-us36-million\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"sold&nbsp;its 83.33% interest to Australian Pacific Coal  (opens in a new tab)\">sold&nbsp;its 83.33% interest to Australian Pacific Coal <\/a>for A$50 million ($36 million) in 2015.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>AQC&nbsp;Dartbrook&nbsp;Management Pty&nbsp;has an existing approval to extract up to six million&nbsp;tonnes&nbsp;of run-of-mine (ROM) coal annually from&nbsp;Dartbook&nbsp;using longwall methods until 2022.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p> Dartbrook&nbsp;was owned by Anglo American until the miner sold&nbsp;its 83.33% interest to Australian Pacific Coal for A$50 million ($36 million) in 2015 <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The company, a&nbsp;wholly-owned&nbsp;subsidiary of Australian Pacific Coal, lodged a modification application to allow&nbsp;bord&nbsp;and pillar mining within the&nbsp;Kayuga&nbsp;Seam; an alternative coal clearance system for transporting ROM coal from the underground mine operation to the existing coal handling and preparation plant, and a five-year extension to the current approval which ends in December 2022.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Planning, Industry and Environment referred the matter to the Commission for determination in January 2019 amid strong opposition from Upper Hunter Shire Council and the local community.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Planning held a public meeting to hear the community\u2019s concerns, including air, noise, visual and water impacts; greenhouse gas emissions and climate change; rehabilitation requirements; impacts on the local equine industry; and the cost benefit and viability of the project.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;\u201cPartial approval of the application is acceptable because mining operations have been approved until 2022 and&nbsp;bord&nbsp;and pillar mining has been acknowledged by the Proponent and Department as a less intensive and environmentally-impacting activity than longwall mining,\u201d&nbsp;the Planning Commission&nbsp;said in a press release Friday.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The five- year extension was refused, as the Commission found it&nbsp;\u201cnot be in accordance with the principles of ecologically sustainable development or inter-generational equity; and, as such, is not in the public interest.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The mine was placed on care and maintenance in late 2006 because of operational difficulties and lower coal prices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1035,2849,369],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131816"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1131816"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1132064,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131816\/revisions\/1132064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1131816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1131816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1131816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}