Australia's New South Wales (NSW) state will pay Chinese mining company Shenhua 100 million Australian dollars to withdraw from the Watermark coalmine project, the UK's Guardian newspaper reported on Wednesday.
 
The newspaper said Shenhua would withdraw its mining lease application and surrender its development consent for the mine.
 
In a related statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Thursday, China Shenhua Energy Company confirmed the development. The company said that its wholly owned subsidiary, Shenhua Watermark, will withdraw its mining lease under an agreement signed with the NSW government. Watermark will also transfer more than 6,000 hectares of ecological land to the NSW Local Land Services for non-agricultural uses.
 
According to the statement, Watermark had submitted an open-pit mining lease application in August last year for an area of ??approximately 95 square kilometres with a marketable reserve of approximately 196 million tonnes under the JORC standard, and a maximum lease duration of 21 years.
 
It explained the withdrawal in terms of aligning with the trend towards clean energy and low carbon transition and protecting the region's biodiversity and ecology as per government plans.
 
The statement noted that the NSW government has pledged to prohibit future coal mining in the exploration areas of Watermark by amending mining regulations.
 
(Writing by Saket S; Editing by Anoop Menon)
 
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