HVO South Open Cut Coal Continuation Project

IEEFA is providing comments on issues with the project that need to be addressed.

Attached

Submission in Support of HVO South Approval Extension
As CEO of MC Quality (MCQ), I strongly support the extension of approvals for HVO South.
This operation is central to the Hunter Valley’s economic and social fabric. HVO South provides stable, well-paid jobs to thousands of people directly and indirectly, and the multiplier effect runs deep through the region. Contractors, suppliers, transport operators, and small businesses all rely on the continuity of this mine. When HVO South thrives, local towns thrive.
For our business, we see the impact every day. MCQ employs inspectors, supervisors, and engineers across NSW and beyond. Many of them are based in the Hunter Valley, and they rely on consistent, high-quality operations like HVO South to underpin their careers. More importantly, their families rely on it. Approvals at HVO South mean confidence in household budgets, mortgages, and kids’ futures. It’s about giving people a reason to build their lives here instead of looking elsewhere.
The Hunter is built on mining culture—on communities that have grown up around the strength of this industry. HVO South is not just a mine; it’s a cornerstone of that culture and identity. Extending approvals protects that heritage while also securing opportunities for the next generation of tradespeople, engineers, and operators who deserve to see a future in their own region.
On a wider scale, HVO South plays a vital role in national economic security. Coal from the Hunter Valley contributes significantly to Australia’s export market and tax revenues. These revenues underpin essential services—schools, hospitals, infrastructure—that reach far beyond the Hunter. At a time of uncertainty in global markets, stability here at home gives businesses and communities confidence to invest and grow.
HVO South is also subject to some of the highest regulatory standards in the world. From safety to environmental management, expectations are not static—they keep rising. And operations like HVO South have shown a willingness to keep meeting and exceeding them. As a quality-focused business, we know what continuous improvement looks like, and we see it happening across the Valley.
If approvals are not extended, the impacts would be severe and immediate:
Thousands of direct and indirect jobs lost.
Small and medium enterprises left without contracts or cash flow.
Families facing instability and forced to move away.
A loss of cultural identity that has been built on generations of mining heritage.
Conversely, extending approvals delivers clear, measurable benefits:
Employment stability—direct, indirect, and future opportunities.
Community strength—families, schools, clubs, and services remain secure.
Business confidence—contractors and suppliers can keep investing in people and capability.
National contribution—continued royalties, taxes, and export earnings.
Cultural continuity—maintaining the Hunter’s mining identity and pride.
HVO South represents far more than a mining project. It is a foundation stone for the Hunter Valley’s prosperity, its identity, and its future. Extending these approvals ensures the region continues to be a place where people can build careers, raise families, and contribute to Australia’s economy with confidence.
I encourage government decision-makers to recognise the broad economic, social, and cultural value of HVO South and extend its approvals to protect this future.
Mick Cameron
CEO, MC Quality

Please see attachment.

The Hunter Mining Club advocates strongly for approving the HVO Continuation Project Amendment, recognising its critical importance to the ongoing prosperity and community future of the Hunter Valley.

Our mining heritage has built thriving communities throughout the Hunter Valley. The HVO Continuation Project maintains a multi-generational legacy while supporting families, local businesses, and essential community services that rely on mining industry contributions. From playgrounds to swimming pools and even vital services like the rescue helicopter, mining is the anchor of this community - and regional communities deserve continued stability and support.

We urge approval of this economically crucial project that manages to harmonise responsible development with community prosperity.

The Hunter Mining Club strongly endorses the HVO Continuation as vital for our region’s economic stability and workforce security.

The planned project minimises environmental impact while delivering substantial economic benefits to our community.

The continuation will preserve hundreds of direct mining jobs and thousands of indirect positions across the Hunter Valley supply chain. Local businesses, from equipment suppliers to service providers, depend on this economic foundation, and have told us this at our regular events. The project ensures career pathways for current workers and apprenticeship opportunities for the next generation - and the next generation deserves these opportunities to continue.

We strongly recommend endorsing this plan that balances responsible resource extraction with sustained economic wellbeing in the Hunter.

HVO SOUTH needs to be extended it supports alot of people and communities providing funding and assistance.

I support this continuation

I oppose the proposed expansion of Hunter Valley Operations mines. There is certainly now no time nor place for digging up coal to burn to heat water to create steam to make a turbine turn to generate electricity. This already over- heated planet earth cannot afford an energy generation system based on fossil fuels. The transition to the renewable energy power based grid is gaining increasing momentum.
This continuation proposal that would generate 803 million tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution is not acceptable and there is no good reason to approve it. Indeed it should not be approved as it does not adequately assess the Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions and also, is, in fact, totally antagonistic to the current NSW Large Emitters Guide to reduce emissions by 75% by 2030.

The impact of global warming from the accumulation of greenhouse gas emissions is far reaching and long lasting. Following the recent decision in the NSW Court of Appeal, there is legal precedent that the environmental, social and economic impact of Scope 3 emissions on the locality must be included in the assessment of the proposal.
Climate change induced floods, droughts, unprecedented fires, and increasingly turbulent atmospheric conditions and changed prevailing wind systems and extreme events will be increasingly more frequent and more intense unless we, at the very least, try to achieve greenhouse gases emissions reduction targets. The HVO proposal to add 803 million tonnes of pollution to the atmosphere between now and 2045 is totally not looking at the matter from any perspective other than narrow abstract notions of money making.

The proponent does not even attempt to address the need for comprehensive assessment of its outrageous proposal. The economic cost/benefit analysis is skewed and underestimates the costs and overestimates the benefits, particularly in an economic environment where coal is increasingly worthless.

This monstrous coalmine expansion would intrude further into the alluvial aquifer of the Hunter River. This would exacerbate the already apparent groundwater drawdown in the Hunter River and Wollombi Brook alluvium for many years to come, long after mining ceases. The impact on hydrology is clearly of grave environmental concern for the health of the entire Hunter River catchment, including downstream estuarine ecosystem health. And obviously consideration of hydrological impacts must include the assessment of the impact on agriculture.

The Hunter Valley Operations Mining Continuation proposal ought not be approved. It is fatally flawed.

Coal mines have been the backbone of the Hunter for several decades. Providing opportunity for its residents and attracting industry and talent into the local community.
Developments like HVO, both North and South, are fundamental to keeping the region progressing as other industries catch up to fill the gaps of the declining production profile of the Hunter over the next few decades.
As a mining engineer in the Hunter, the impacts outlined in this project are insignificant on a global level and should not prevent its development, rather provide an opportunity to demonstrate best practice mining with consideration of being a good global citizen and key stakeholder in the Hunter Valley.

The Hunter Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association objects to the Hunter Valley Operations Open Cut Coal Continuation (North and South) Amendment Project.

The continuation of the Hunter Valley South project will have an irrevocably negative impact on Singleton and the wider Hunter Community. At a time when we need to be rapidly transitioning to a renewable, circular economy, it is utter madness to risk sacrificing permanent economic sustainability, for a less than half a generation of economic impact through continued mining operations. Mining operations that will further increase income inequality, as compounding, market driven profits, as coal diminishes as a viable resource, are funnelled asymmetrically to billionaire investors, while local businesses and contractors are already being squeezed out. Essentially, aside from the climate impacts, the profits from mining will increasingly be transferred to the investor class, with the blue collar workers of the Hunter who actually do the work of extracting this resource, being evermore "left out in the cold" with contracts shuttered by mines winding down, whilst reaping ever higher profits from coal supply squeezes.
Allowing continued resource extraction in any capacity beyond 2030 is economic and environmental poison.

Having reviewed the details of the submission I support the approval of the Continuation of operations at HVO as proposed. All of the key issues regarding environment and community concerns are very well addressed and the economic importance of this operation’s continued contribution to the local, regional, state and national economy can’t be overstated. Extremely important employer and generator of benefits to the Hunter Region.

This project will support the local community for years to come not only for the staff directly attached to the mine but the local community as well. We still need coal as there is no reliable alternative that will meet demand as it stands today.

Hunter Valley Operations (and its predecessors) and Seam Spatial (Previously Survey and Drafting Resources/Pegasus Survey and Drafting/Co-Resources) have almost 40 years of combined history with Surveying and Mine planning services in the Hunter Valley.
We have trained many Surveyors who now work within and around the mining industry across Australia, over this combined 40 years a vast majority of these Surveyors that have passed through Seam Spatial have worked at times at Hunter Valley Operations.
The ongoing relationship we have with HVO is ultimately beneficial to the NSW economy as a whole because it has produced many experienced and skilled professional Surveyors.
Across the whole of Australia Surveyors are increasingly difficult to find, it is a rarity having a site that values training of younger professionals as highly as HVO does.

Seam Spatial without reservation whole heartedly supports this project.

I support the continuation

Coal Mining is a vital part of our history in the Hunter Valley as well as our future. This project will provide jobs, boost our local economy and provide high quality coal for offshore steel and power generation.

Happy for it to go a head

HVO has helped so many local families to survive the past 30 years of tough financial times. Providing security and financial independence to many families over the Greater region. HVO have always moved with the times and invest heavily in land recovery after they have completed mining. The help this business brings to the Hunter region is a life line to our state.

The continuation of HVO is important to keep people in the area and to provide local people with great job opportunities