Bathurst Resources wins climate change appeal

Bathurst Resources wins climate change appeal

Aug. 27 (BusinessDesk) - Bathurst Resources has beaten off a challenge by environmental groups seeking to have its West Coast coking coal plans overturned on the grounds that burning coal causes climate change.

Bathurst went into a brief trading halt on Friday ahead of the release of the decision from the High Court, upholding a previous Environment Court decision that found climate change considerations cannot be applied in the granting of localised resource consents.

The company still faces substantive hearings, starting late October, on appeals against resource consents granted in August last year for its open-cut Escarpment Mine project, on the Denniston Plateau above Westport.

The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society is arguing Bathurst's plans have undue impacts on bio-diversity in the area, parts of which have been extensively mined in the past.

Bathurst shares are trading at 51 cents, having risen 37.8 percent in the last month, but are still barely a third of their high point in the last year of $1.50 a share.

(BusinessDesk)

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