New South Wales has recently introduced and approved a new rehabilitation cost estimation (RCE) tool, following an extensive benchmark review of current rates and consultation with industry stakeholders.
The new tool has been designed to enable the calculation of the costs of rehabilitating a mine site, as well as the amount of security deposit to be provided to the government.
A staged rollout was planned to begin from 31 October 2025, with state government authority NSW Resources acknowledging that some mines may be in the process of preparing and submitting RCEs using the previous tool.
The NSW Government said that all mining lease holders must use the new tool for all rehabilitation cost estimates from 2 March 2026 onwards.
New guidelines have also been provided with updates on how to define final land use domains over a tailings storage facility and clarifications requirements when on submitting a rehabilitation completion criteria statement to the Regulator.
There is also further guidance on groundwater and surface water criteria, approaches to erosional and geotechnical stability values, and on the completion of older and or already established native vegetation rehabilitation.
There have also been updates to annual rehabilitation reports and forward programs, as all mines are now required to prepare these in accordance with departmental guidelines and submit them through the NSW Resources portal.
New guidelines for both large and small mines have now been updated as well, providing language clarifications and added details to sections and tables throughout the document.
On 19 November, the Regulator will be conducting a webinar to further assist the wider industry with the transition.
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