DARTBROOK’S owner Australian Pacific Coal has agreed to sell a half share in the mine to a private Canadian company, Stella Natural Resources, for $20 million.
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Australian Pacific Coal – or AQC to use its stock exchange listing initials – was originally a comeback vehicle for Nathan Tinkler but he no longer has any public role with the company, which is backed by wealthy business families from the Northern Territory.
Stella has its corporate base in Canada but most of its executive team, including former Wollongong Coal boss David Stone, have held senior roles with big resources sector companies, including Glencore.
AQC announced its purchase of Dartbrook from Anglo American in December 2015 for $25 million. Its eventual aim is to run an open-cut mine on the lease, but it is also seeking approval to reopen the shuttered Dartbrook underground, but as a small bord-and-pillar operation rather than the longwall shut in 2006. Submissions responding to the underground mine’s environmental assessment show Muswellbrook and Upper Hunter shire councils raising various concerns but stopping short of opposing the project outright.
In a statement announcing the joint venture, AQC said the Stella Natural Resources team had “significant coalmining experience” and would be responsible for developing and operating the Dartbrook operations.
In a sign that AQC may end up selling more of the operation, it said Stella would also be responsible for “the procurement of all required funding for the life of the operation”.
“AQC will not be required to contribute directly to any holding, development or operational costs at Dartbrook,” the company’s statement said. It said the Dartbrook Joint Venture would lend AQC $10 million to repay a loan from Anglo American.
David Stone, Stella’s chief executive, said Dartbrook was his company’s “entry operation into the Australian coal sector . . . and we look forward to expanding our footprint”.
On the reopening of the underground mine, Muswellbrook council says “many other” mines in its local government area, including Mount Arthur, Mangoola and an extension of Bengalla, were “not contemplated” when Dartbrook was approved, meaning that “any assessment of cumulative environmental and social impacts completed for the original proposal is now out of date and unreliable as a predicator of impact”.
Upper Hunter council says the underground mine is unlikely to be financially viable given its small size. It asks whether AQC has “a genuine interest” in the underground mine or whether it is “simply buying time” to develop the open-cut.
Muswellbrook raises dust concerns over Dartbrook’s intention to sell unwashed or “run-of-mine coal”, noting that the environmental assessment “generally doesn’t consider the impacts of the mine beyond the immediate boundaries of the site”.
The council also raises questions about predicted dust levels based on 24-hour averages, saying this measure “has the unintended consequence of obscuring issues of elevated dust levels at night”. It says not enough is known about the human health impacts of high dust levels at night and calls on the NSW government to fund a study on the subject.
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Ian Kirkwood
Reporting journalist at the Newcastle Herald since 1987. Editorial writer, general reporter, industrial relations, industry and coal.
Reporting journalist at the Newcastle Herald since 1987. Editorial writer, general reporter, industrial relations, industry and coal.
