GVK Hancock, a joint venture between India’s GVK and Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, has been granted an environmental permit for the Alpha Coal project in the Galilee Basin in Central Queensland.
It follows an extensive and most rigorous assessment of the possible environmental risks and around 300 collaborative scientific studies involving over 500 specialists consultants.
“This is one of the most significant milestones in the development of our Galilee Basin coal projects till date which will create one of the most remarkable pieces of regional and economic developments Queensland has seen for decades,” said Dr GVK Reddy, Founder Chairman and Managing Director, GVK.
“This milestone takes us another step closer towards commencing our proposed Alpha mine, which will create around 4,000 jobs during its three year construction and more than 1,800 jobs over its 30 plus years of operation. We’ve invested tens of millions of dollars and thousands of man hours assessing, planning and engaging with communities to reach this stage,” shared Mr G V Sanjay Reddy, Vice Chairman, GVK.
According to the media release by GVK, the joint venture still needs to finalise a plan with coal rail operator Aurizon Holdings, overcome legal challenges to the project, and sign coal sales agreements before lining up financing for the huge project.
“Once the infrastructure joint venture with Aurizon is finalised and the regulatory bodies have addressed litigious challenges to approvals, GVK Hancock will execute coal off-take agreements before finalising all financing arrangements,” the company stated in the media release.
The company said that the grant of the environmental permit was a significant development that takes GVK another step closer towards bringing online a new low cost, low ash, low sulphur, high quality thermal coal basin, offering the ability to lower emissions from global coal fired power generation.
“The volume and magnitude of GVK’s Alpha coal project’s large, shallow and very flat coal seams would enable large scale mining techniques, thus ensuring that the proposed mine remains cost competitive even in current tough market conditions,” it says in the media release.
The proposed Alpha mine has a JORC compliant resource of 1.8 billion tonnes, with 1.2 billion tonnes of reserves and will be a full open cut mine producing around 32 million tonnes per annum for 30 years.
