Environment group Lock the Gate Alliance says workers at the Hunter Valley Operations coal mine, and the wider communities of Singleton and Muswellbrook, have been left without a plan to manage the social and economic fallout of eventual mine closure, after a long-standing requirement for a “mine exit strategy” was removed from the project’s approval conditions.
Mining at HVO North was originally approved in 2004 with an expected 21-year lifespan, later extended by 18 months in April 2025. The Independent Planning Commission is now assessing a separate application to extend operations at HVO by a further 19 years.
According to a Lock the Gate Alliance review of documents dating back to 2004, HVO North was required by the NSW Department of Planning to develop a mine exit strategy within five years of approval. An independent audit completed in 2022 was unable to locate the strategy, and the group says the requirement itself appears to have been deleted when the 18-month extension was approved last year, without notice or explanation.
Lock the Gate Alliance National Coordinator Georgina Woods said the missing strategy left the HVO workforce without a safety net.
“It appears that Glencore and the Planning Department worked together to remove this key condition just when it was needed most, less than two years before mining was due to cease,” Woods said.
She’s calling on Glencore to commit to funding transition arrangements for its workforce and the wider Hunter economy. She also raised concerns about the air quality, water and climate impacts of extending the mine further.
Hunter Valley Operations General Manager Dave Foster rejected any suggestion the company was neglecting its workforce, saying meeting the mine’s agreed consent obligations represented “our starting point, not our finish line.”
The issue was raised by several speakers during this week’s Independent Planning Commission public hearing into the HVO extension, with Lock the Gate writing to the Commission asking it to consider the new information as part of its assessment.
