The Columboola Project is a proposed thermal coal development located near the town of Miles in Queensland’s Surat Basin. The project area contains extensive coal-bearing formations within the basin’s sedimentary sequences, which host several large thermal coal deposits across southern Queensland.

The project was advanced through a joint venture between MetroCoal and China Coal Import and Export Company, a subsidiary of the state-owned China National Coal Group. China Coal acquired a majority interest in the project and committed funding to explore and evaluate the resource, with exploration targets suggesting several billion tonnes of potential coal within the tenement area.

Development plans focused on establishing a large underground longwall mining operation capable of producing thermal coal for export markets. Early technical studies examined production scenarios ranging from small initial operations to much larger long-term developments supported by regional rail and port infrastructure.

Despite exploration work and preliminary development planning, the project has not progressed to construction and has since been cancelled, remaining an undeveloped coal resource within the Surat Basin.