Whitehaven Coal has announced a $150 million investment in a smaller version of its Vickery project, aiming to produce coal within 15 months. 

The mine will be constructed in June and will be approximately 13 per cent the size of the full-scale Vickery project. 

The fast-tracked strategy will allow Whitehaven to capitalise on the high prices of coal, with the company predicting that NSW thermal coal prices will average $US156 per tonne for the next three years. 

The smaller mine will produce up to 1.3 million tonnes of raw coal, translating to approximately 1 million tonnes of saleable coal. 

In comparison, Whitehaven’s existing business is expected to produce over 15 million tonnes of coal by June. 

Whitehaven has permission to mine 10 million tonnes of raw coal at Vickery, which would translate into a much more substantial mine producing between 7 million and 8 million tonnes of saleable coal. 

The company plans to make a decision on the larger version of Vickery, which is expected to cost closer to $1 billion to build, at the end of 2023 or in early 2024. 

The decision will take into account the Albanese government's new “safeguards mechanism” emissions reduction policy. 

Whitehaven's Maules Creek and Narrabri mines are currently covered by the safeguard mechanism policy, and the company is still in negotiations with the government over how the emissions limits, or “baselines,” should be set. 

Whitehaven said it was particularly focused on how “production variables” would affect the emissions limits placed on mines. 

Whitehaven’s Vickery coal is among the highest energy content in the world at around 6400 kilocalories per kilogram, with some semi-soft coking coal also expected to be produced. 

While Vickery’s coal has received high price premiums due to the blacklisting of Russian coal, Whitehaven has indicated that it will blend Vickery’s product with coal from its other mines to raise the overall quality and price of its product. 

Environmental campaigners have criticised the decision to invest in the Vickery project. 

Will van de Pol from Market Forces says; “Whitehaven is steaming ahead with its new Vickery coal mine flying in the face of the International Energy Agency’s finding that there could be no such developments after 2021 if we’re to have a fighting chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius”.