1.2.3.1.7 Drayton South Coal Project

Anglo American Metallurgical Coal Pty Ltd (AAMC) and its joint venture partners sought approval for the Drayton South Coal Project to extend the life of the Drayton Mine, located 13 km south of Muswellbrook, which is due to run out of reserves in 2015 (Anglo American, 2015). The planned project was to develop a new open-cut and highwall mining operation to extract up to 7 Mt/year of ROM coal for a further 27 years (NSW Planning Assessment Commission, 2013). The NSW Planning and Assessment Commission (PAC) rejected the plan on 21 October 2014. The project did not: (i) provide a sufficient buffer to protect Coolmore and Darley from the impacts of mining as recommended in the PAC Review Report and the Gateway Panel Report, (ii) demonstrate it will not adversely impact on equine health and (iii) act in the public interest (NSW Planning Assessment Commission, 2014, p. 2). On 23 January 2015, a Gateway Application for the Drayton South Coal Project was submitted to the NSW Mining and Petroleum Gateway Panel who issued the Gateway Certificate on 2 April 2015 (NSW Mining and Petroleum Gateway Panel, 2015).