Wayne Seabrook, chairman of the privately owned Malabar Resources, said the company hoped to start work on the mine in the first half of next year.

Mr Seabrook said the project would create permanent work for about 350 mineworkers, in an underground mine in which about three-quarters of its product would be coking or "met" (metallurgical) coal for Asian steelworks.

Mr Seabrook also responded to criticism from environmental group Lock The Gate Alliance, saying Malabar Resources was also planning a 25 megawatt solar farm on land it owns south of Muswellbrook - part of the site it acquired in 2017 when it bought the Drayton coal assets from departing owner Anglo American plc.

"We are a company in transition from thermal open-cut coal to underground met coal, and the solar farm is part of that transition," Mr Seabrook said.

The Maxwell project has been approved for operation until 2047 and Mr Seabrook said that meant $55 million a year in wages, plus other spending by the company in the Hunter Region, as well as as much as $1.2 billion in royalties the coal would put into the NSW government's coffers.

"The project will also support local businesses and suppliers over the next three decades, and provide a real boost to the local economy, particularly during this challenging period," Mr Seabrook said.

He said that while Malabar Resources was a relatively new company, having been started in 2012, it had experienced senior management and its major investors included such coal industry stalwarts as Tony Haggarty and Allan Davies, both of whom had played major roles in various Hunter and Gunnedah mining projects over the years.

The Herald will have more about the Maxwell project, in print and online, tomorrow.

THE $500-million Maxwell underground coal mine project has been granted approval consent by the Independent Planning Commission, saying the risk of adverse environmental impacts are "low".

The commission's decision was published today, three days out from Christmas in a decision that has been attacked by environmental group Lock The Gate Alliance as "appalling".

In a statement on its website, the commission says it has put 169 conditions on the consent, saying "the potential impacts of new underground coal mine in the NSW Hunter Valley can be 'reasonably and satisfactorily' identified, avoided, mitigated and managed".

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The underground mine was proposed by a subsidiary of Malabar Coal, which bought the former Drayton coal mine assets from then-owner Anglo American in 2017.

That included the controversial Drayton South project, which was rejected by the commission's predecessor, the Planning Assessment Commission, with open-cut mining prohibited in that area by an amendment to the relevant Mining State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) in December 2017.

But underground mining, including the Maxwell project, was allowed to continue.

The conditions of consent, also published on the website, show Maxwell will be able to produce 8 million tonnes a year of run-of-mine (unwashed) coal, with its operations licensed until June 30, 1947.

The commission media release says that will amount to about 148 million tonnes of coal across 26 years, but 8 million tonnes a year over that time would be 208 million tonnes.

The commission said the application was determined by the chair of the commission, Mary O'Kane, and deputy chair John Hann.

It said more than 50 "unique objections" were raised against the project.

The panel met with the applicant, the Department of Planning and the Muswellbrook and Upper Hunter shire councils and held a two-day public hearing and inspected the site and surrounding areas.

The commission said the two-day hearing focused on environmental, equine and agricultural, economic impacts and jobs, health and heritage.

In its decision, the commission said that "on balance" and when weighed against the relevant climate change policies and socio-economc benefits, the potential impacts are manageable, and the risks of adverse impacts on the environment are low.

The commission said that an underground mine, as opposed to an open-cut, minimised "the impact of issues such as air quality, visual impact, noise and vibration and is therefore unlikely to result in significant impacts on sensitive receivers including the Coolmore and Godolphin Woodlands studs or the Equine Cluster more broadly".

It said Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions could be minimised and the project included "appropriate remediation and biodiversity management and offsetting".

Lock The Gate NSW co-ordinator Georgina Woods said the "appalling decision" to approve Maxwell underground was "further evidence" the commission was a rubber stamp for the NSW government.

Ms Woods said it was the sixth mining project the commission had IPC had "waved through" after the Land and Environment Court decision that stopped Rocky Hill on climate change grounds,

"The public have effectively lost faith in the IPC's ability to assess controversial mining projects with an impartial eye since Planning Minister Rob Stokes kneecapped the authority following the rejection of the Bylong Valley mine," Ms Woods said.

"Merits appeal rights for those who oppose these projects are unavailable so without an independent umpire, people and industries that are affected by mining have effectively got no say and no protection.

"Clearly, Minister Stokes has stripped the IPC of its independence. It is now little more than an extension of the NSW Government and Planning Department, that rubber stamps anything that comes its way.

"We are calling for the reintroduction of merits appeal rights so the community can have a basic fair hearing in the Land and Environment Court about the impact of inappropriate coal and gas projects like Maxwell Underground."

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