The study, prepared by Palaris Mining, found that the project would have extraction rates of 5 million tonnes per annum from its Whynot seam and 5.3Mtpa from the Whybrow seam and would require project start-up capital of $727 million.

Doyles Creek would have a total ROM production of 101Mt of semi soft coking coal with average pit top ROM cash cost of $31.44 per tonne.

It would have average FOB cash costs of $65.77/t excluding royalties, which would position the project in the lowest quartile of operating costs for seaborne metallurgical coal projects, according to the report.

“The PFS shows that the project is … viable using conservative assumptions,” the company said in a statement.

“The project appears to have no fatal flaws and as a result, the board has concluded that the project should progress to the bankable feasibility study.

“Planning for the BFS is well advanced and a timetable for the BFS and development stages of the project will be published during the next quarter.”

The base case is forecast to extract 57.2Mt of ROM coal in the Whynot seam and 44.7Mt in the Whybrow seam (total life of mine 101.9Mt) on an air dried basis.

The product mix for the Whynot seam will be split into two phases: longwall panels 1 to 8 will produce 24.4Mt of semi-soft coking coal sold on a ROM basis with no beneficiation and the remaining longwall panels will be washed to produce 30.3Mt of prime semi-soft coking coal with 5% ash. Average dry yield for the Whynot seam is forecast to be 87.9%.

The capital cost assumptions for the project are: surface infrastructure $232 million, underground infrastructure $223 million, underground production equipment $247 million, and training mine $25 million.