The Planning Assessment Commission has approved the Port Waratah Terminal 4 project, almost five years after Port Waratah Coal Services initially lodged the application for the new terminal in 2010.
The process has involved around 1700 days of assessment, dozens of individual technical studies, over 125 days of public exhibition and over 30 hours of public hearings.
Terminal 4 is an open access coal export terminal that will be situated on Kooragang Island in the Port of Newcastle, in NSW. The terminal will have the capacity to export up to 70 million tonnes of coal per annum (mtpa).
With an estimated capital investment value of $4.8 billion, the project will involve remediating the site, and then developing rail and coal receiving infrastructure, coal stockpile pads and associated stacking and reclaiming machinery; wharf and berth infrastructure; coal conveyors, feeders and transfer stations and associated infrastructure.
Port Waratah Coal Services will also build three biodiversity offset sites located at Ellalong Lagoon, Brundee Swamp Nature Reserve and Tomago.
The Terminal 4 project is expected to generate 1500 construction jobs, and up to 80 operational positions.
In terms of transport, Terminal 4 is expected to feature up to four arrival tracks converging into up to three dump stations, up to four departure tracks combining into a single track around Kooragang Coal Terminal, up to four coal stockpile pads, up to four stackers and four reclaimers, inbound and outbound conveyors to service the dump stations and stockpiles, and three ship berths on the north side of the Hunter River South Arm and a barge landing area on north bank of swing basin to unload large equipment.
The recent slowing of coal demand from the Port of Newcastle means Port Waratah Coal Services has scaled down its Terminal 4 project from its original proposal, from 120 mtpa to the current 70 mtpa. The terminal will be progressively constructed in response to demand nominated by coal producers and commercial requirements.
A major part of the works will be the $100 million remediation of the site, which consists of three licensed landfill areas, and was previously used as an industrial waste disposal area for contaminated material, substances and general refuse associated with past activities of nearby industry and the port, including a former BHP steelworks.
One of the waste disposal facilities on the site is the Delta Electrolytic Manganese Dioxide (EMD) waste disposal facility, owned by PWCS, which is contaminated with a range of toxic materials. The Terminal 4 project will see this contaminated site capped to achieve a permeability of 1 x 10-11m/s, as recommended by the EPA, within five years of the approval.