The open-cut mine, located south of the township of Bluff about 174 kilometres west of Rockhampton, was placed under the management of the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines after liquidators from McGrathNicol disclaimed the mining lease, associated environmental authority and exploration permits.
"This means the mining lease has ceased, the site is now an abandoned mine and will be managed by the Queensland government," a department spokesperson said. "The department has secured the site and is working with relevant agencies to ensure risks to public safety and the environment are appropriately managed."
Bowen Coking Coal purchased the mine from Carabella Resources in 2021. Carabella Resources had been granted the original 15-year mining lease in 2016, began operations in 2019, but entered voluntary administration in November 2020 when coal prices fell to US$72 per tonne. The mine was placed into care and maintenance in December 2020 before Bowen Coking Coal restarted operations, mining first coal in the first quarter of 2022.
Bowen Coking Coal went into voluntary administration in July last year. A notice to formally wind up the overarching Bowen PCI Pty Ltd company was published on the Australian Securities and Investments Commission website on September 14 this year.
Rehabilitation works will now be managed through the department's Abandoned Mine Lands Program. Lock the Gate's Central Queensland coordinator Claire Gronow said this created concerns. "This is kind of uncharted territories. Although there's heaps of abandoned coal mines around Queensland, including the notorious Mount Morgan gold mine, that the government is required to manage, this is a relatively recent occurrence for a coal mine to simply walk away," Dr Gronow said.
Unlike most mines transferred to the program after reaching end of life with rehabilitation done, the Bluff coal mine was still active when it closed. "The mine didn't go its full life," Dr Gronow said. "The rehabilitation plans would probably need to be redrawn to deal with the fact that they're halfway through the mine."
Money for rehabilitation comes from the state government's financial provisioning scheme.