The Isaac Plains Coal Mine is an open cut metallurgical coal operation, located approximately 180km west of Mackay and 7km north east of Moranbah in the Bowen Basin region of Queensland and is owned equally between Aquila Resources and Vale.
The approval is the culmination of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process, which has involved discussions with relevant stakeholders. The outcome of this work will be a new set of environmental conditions for the mine including dust control monitoring to be implemented as part of this expansion.
The expansion will also involve the construction and operation of the mine’s recently refurbished dragline, which will result in the creation of approximately 100 jobs during the construction phase and when in operation will provide significant operating cost savings, the company said.
Isaac Plains has already invested approximately $50m on the purchase and refurbishment of the dragline and will undertake the construction to complete the project over the next nine months at a cost of circa $36m.
