Environment Minister Plibersek blocks Regis Resources’ plan for McPhillamys gold project

Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has rejected the current blueprint for Regis Resources’ McPhillamys gold project in New South Wales, overturning numerous prior approvals. Regis ducked into a trading halt on Friday afternoon pending a formal announcement about a Section 10 application under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984. The application was against Regis’ $1 billion McPhillamys development near Orange. Sources had told The West Australian earlier on Friday that Ms Plibersek ruled in favour of the application. Regis has declined to comment. Ms Plibersek released a statement saying she had made a “partial declaration” that would “protect a significant Aboriginal site” from being “destroyed” to build the McPhillamys tailings dam. “Because I accept that the headwaters of the Belubula River are of particular significance to the Wiradjuri/Wiradyuri people in accordance with their tradition, I have decided to protect them,” she said. “They (the headwaters) have featured in many traditions practiced for generations including by Aboriginal people transitioning from youth to young adulthood. Some of these traditions have been disclosed to me privately and must remain confidential due to their cultural sensitivity. “Crucially, my decision is not to stop the mine.” But the flow-on effect from the decision upends Regis’ entire plan for the project, forcing it back to the drawing board to find a new location for the tailings dam — a crucial component of a mine that holds the left-over materials from the processing of ore. It will then need to jump over all the various regulatory hurdles again to get a new mining proposal approved. Under Section 10 of the Act, an application can be made to the Federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water to request the protection and preservation of significant Aboriginal areas. Regis had been stuck in bureaucratic purgatory since October 2020 when a Wiradyuri Elder submitted the Section 10 application against McPhillamys. Some Wiradyuri Elders have claimed the project will destroy “songlines” across the nearby Kings Plains and Belubula River. There is no statutory timeframe for the Environment Minister — which since 2022 has been Tanya Plibersek — to make a ruling on the Section 10 application, creating a bureaucratic black hole that has angered mining groups. The company had received all other substantive State and Federal approvals. Regis, which is led by Jim Beyer, released a definitive feasibility study for McPhillamys last month. The DFS revealed $996 million would be needed to develop the mine, including $73m of contingency and $70m of pre-production operating costs that were capitalised. The study estimated McPhillamys could produce 1.71 million ounces of gold across a mine life of 9.4 years, with peak annual production of 235,000oz and an average of 187,000ozpa at full production. The mine was previously expected to cost somewhere in the region of between $550m and $650m but the Section 10 delay, plus industry-wide inflation and tweaks to the design of the mine, fuelled a massive cost blowout. Section 10 applications exploded following the Juukan Gorge incident in May 2020 — when Rio Tinto destroyed two ancient Aboriginal rock shelters in the Pilbara — causing a wide-scale public outcry. In parallel to this, Minister Plibersek has taken a dim view on major mining projects. Shares in Regis last changed hands at $1.65, giving the company a market capitalisation of $1.3 billion. Regis has two gold mining hubs in WA — Duketon and Tropicana — and McPhillamys was set to be the core plank of its growth strategy. McPhillamys is in the same region of NSW as the massive Cadia gold mine and Northparkes copper-gold mine.