One of the most important approvals for Whitehaven’s $700 million coal project was secured late on Wednesday.

Whitehaven already has approval to mine up to 4.5 million tonnes of coal each year at Vickery, and the current approval process seeks to increase that to 10 million tonnes per year.
If given the green light by regulators, Whitehaven envisages a mine that runs for 25 years producing an average of about 7.2 million tonnes per year.
The IPC is already familiar with the project, having held public hearings and producing an issues report between February 2019 and April 2019.
Whitehaven managing director Paul Flynn said that process had demonstrated there was strong support in the community for Vickery to go ahead.
“Vickery has the potential to be one of the most significant sources of employment and investment in north-west NSW in the coming years and major infrastructure projects have a key role to play in the post-COVID-19 economic recovery, including for regional Australia,” he said on Wednesday.
Asked last week how long investors should expect the remaining approvals to take, Mr Flynn said: “In essence, I would say allow six months post the IPC approval to receive all approvals necessary to proceed to production.”
Mr Flynn told the same gathering of investors last week that he did not expect the emissions of Whitehaven’s customers, known as Scope 3 emissions, to be one of the factors in the IPC’s decision.
”Our understanding is that the previous anomaly of IPC concerningitself with Scope 3 emissions, our understanding is that avenue of pursuit of concern has been taken off the table, and that won’t be a feature of the final stages of the process for the Vickery project and projects generally then after,” Mr Flynn told the BAML conference.
”I think the government’s ruled out individual agencies involved in this process engaging in consideration of national and international commitments.”
The comments are a reference to a decision in the NSW Land and Environment court last year, where Scope 3 emissions were flagged as possible grounds to reject the Rocky Hill coal project.
The NSW government introduced a bill in October 2019 that moved to prevent major projects, including coal mines, being rejected on the grounds of Scope 3 emissions.
Coal prices have slumped dramatically over the past three months to a point where an estimated 30 per cent of Australian mines are no longer making money.
Whitehaven does not expect to be making a final investment decision on Vickery this year, suggesting there is time for prices to improve before the company takes a final investment decision.