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Australia’s coal mines face tighter air quality limits

Peter Ker
Peter KerResources reporter

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Coal miners could soon be forced to meet the same workplace air quality standards imposed on all other industries after the nation’s top workplace safety agency decided the sector should lose a long-standing exemption.

Australian workplaces are required to keep carbon dioxide levels in air below 5000 parts per million, but coal companies have an exemption that allows carbon dioxide levels to be 12,500 ppm inside mines.

Safe Work Australia, the federal regulator, has reviewed the coal industry exemption over the past two years and its board has decided coal mines should lose the exemption and fall into line with other industries.

The coal mining sector has until now been exempted from Safe Work Australia air quality standards. Bloomberg

“Following independent expert review, the evaluation report for carbon dioxide did not recommend a separate workplace exposure standard for coal mines as there is no available health information to support this approach,” the agency said in a statement to The Australian Financial Review.

“Instead, a single workplace exposure standard ... was recommended.”

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Safe Work Australia does not have the power to implement the change in its own right; rather it was established to make recommendations to state and federal workplace safety ministers on policy matters.

Safe Work Australia has not yet formally recommended to state and federal governments that the coal exemption should be axed, but its spokeswoman said the recommendation would be made “later this year”.

It will then be up to the relevant ministers whether to enforce and legislate the change in their particular jurisdictions.

Most coal miners declined to comment on the proposed change, but those who spoke to The Australian Financial Review predicted the change would be most challenging for underground mines that dig in carbon-rich seams, such as Peabody Energy’s Metropolitan coking coal mine at Helensburgh, south of Sydney.

BHP, which operates open-cut coal mines at surface in Queensland and NSW, said it would be happy for tighter standards to be adopted.

“We supported the recommended change to 5000ppm through Safe Work Australia’s public feedback process in early 2021. As with any proposed regulatory change, we will review and assess Safe Work Australia’s recommendations when they are released,” a BHP spokesman said.

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Safe Work Australia’s 15-member board is chaired by former Rio Tinto executive Joanne Farrell and includes representatives of state governments, unions and industry associations such as Ai Group.

The coal sector in NSW and Queensland has already faced tighter limits for airborne silica and coal dust over the past three years, while NSW introduced limits on diesel particulate matter in February 2021.

If coal mine air quality standards are changed later this year, it will be the latest in a series of regulatory changes imposed on the sector the past 12 months.

The NSW government imposed export limits and price caps on a portion of the state’s coal production under a process that ran between December and March.

The coal sector is also busily negotiating how the Albanese government’s emissions reduction policy should apply to coal mines, with particular debate over whether underground mines and coking coal mines should get different treatment to open pits and thermal coal mines.

Some miners such as BHP also fear the Albanese government’s industrial relations agenda will be costly for Queensland coal mines, which have in the past year have also been hit with higher state government royalties.

The government is also preparing a critical mineral strategy, which Whitehaven Coal managing director Paul Flynn said last week should be mindful of coal’s role powering defence allies like Japan and South Korea.

Top quality NSW thermal coal was fetching $US148.97 a tonne on May 26 according to GlobalCoal; down from more than $US400 in December.

Peter Ker covers resource companies for The Australian Financial Review, based in Melbourne. Connect with Peter on Twitter. Email Peter at pker@afr.com

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