The Project is located within the Gunnedah Basin, which contains sedimentary rocks, including coal measures, of Permian and Triassic age.

Regionally, there are two coal-bearing sequences in the Gunnedah Basin, namely:
-Early Permian Bellata Group (comprising the Maules Creek sub-basin and Mullaley sub-basin, separated by the Boggabri Ridge);
-Late Permian Black Jack Group.

The Project coal resource is located within the Maules Creek sub-basin of the Early Permian Bellata Group. The target coal seams are contained within the Maules Creek Formation. The Maules Creek Formation is the primary coal bearing unit and consists of conglomerate, coal, lithic sandstone and mudstones.

Below the Maules Creek Formation are the Goonbri and Leard Formations, which are basal units of the Gunnedah Basin sedimentary sequence and unconformably overlie the Boggabri Volcanics. The Goonbri Formation typically contains pyritic sandstone, siltstone and inferior coal seams.

Project area, including the target coal seams within the open cut extent, as follows:
- Tralee Seam;
- Gundawarra Seam;
- Welkeree Seam;
- Kurrumbede Seam;
- Shannon Harbour Seam (upper and lower seams);
- Stratford Seam (upper and lower seams);
- Bluevale Seam (upper and lower seams); and
- Cranleigh Seam (upper, middle and lower seams).

Individual coal seams range in thickness from approximately 0.5 m to greater than 3 m.

Two major fault structures are located within the Project region, namely the Boggabri Thrust (to the west of the Project) and the Mooki Thrust (to the east of the Project). There are also a number of minor faults across the Project mining area.

The Project would involve expansions to the Approved Mine open cut. Up to eight coal seams of the Maules Creek Formation would be mined, with the Cranleigh Seam generally defining the base of the open cut.

The mobile equipment used for the Project would vary according to the requirements of the open cut mining operations. It would include a combination of excavators and/or shovels and haul trucks, with a support fleet that includes dozers, scrapers, graders, front end loaders, drill rigs and water trucks.

Drill and blast techniques would be used for the removal of competent overburden and interburden material for the open cut.

Approximately 168 Mt of ROM coal would be mined over the life of the Project. By comparison, 135 Mt of ROM coal would be mined over the life of the Approved Mine.

Coal mining would involve loaders, excavators and/or shovels loading ROM coal into trucks for haulage to the ROM pad at the mine infrastructure area via internal haul roads. ROM coal would be either dumped directly into a ROM hopper feeding the CHPP, or dumped onto a ROM pad.

Landform profiling and rehabilitation of waste rock emplacement areas would be undertaken progressively over the life of the Project. Temporary rehabilitation would occasionally be undertaken to stabilise landforms until further mining operations are carried out in the future.

Project mining operations would be conducted up to 24 hours per day, seven days per week.

Annual ROM coal production rate:

- Average rate of 6.7 Mtpa over 25 years, with a peak production of up to approximately 10 Mtpa from the Project;

- Up to approximately 13 Mtpa ROM coal combined from the Project and other Whitehaven mines (to be transported by truck to the Project for processing and train loading).

ROM coal would be reclaimed from the ROM bin via a feeder/primary sizer and conveyed to the secondary/tertiary sizing station.

Sized coal would be conveyed to a raw coal surge bin or the product coal stockpile (bypass coal).

From the raw coal surge bin, coal would be fed to the coal preparation plant (CPP) for processing.

Over the life of the Project, additional ROM coal would be hauled from other Whitehaven mining operations to the Project CHPP by on-road haul trucks. This ROM coal would be placed on the Project ROM pad for subsequent rehandling and processing over the life of the Project.

From the raw coal surge bin, coal would be fed to the coal preparation plant (CPP) for processing. Within the CPP, raw coal would undergo wet sizing. The larger fraction would report to the Coarse Coal Circuit and the smaller fraction would report to the Fine Coal Circuit. Product coal from both circuits would be conveyed to the product coal stockpile.

Reject material from both circuits would be conveyed to the rejects bin and then co-disposed with waste rock. A portion of the fine reject material would be concentrated in a thickener and dewatered prior to conveying to the reject bin.

Product coal stockpile infrastructure would include a travelling stacker, dozers, coal valves, reclai ........