Coal Clash Pits Billionaire Against Canadian Country Music Star

Country music star Corb Lund is leading the push to block coal mining in the eastern Rocky Mountains of Alberta. Photo by Iain Boekhoff /Photographer: Iain Boekhoff/Bloo

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(Bloomberg) — Australia’s richest woman wants to mine coal in the Rocky Mountains and one of Canada’s most famous country music singers has built a coalition of ranchers, fishermen and environmentalists to stop the project.

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A unit of billionaire Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd. is seeking government permission to reopen the Grassy Mountain mine in Alberta to extract coal used in steel production. 

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The project has been previously rejected because of concerns it would damage water quality and harm wildlife. Hancock’s not alone. Separately, Valory Resources Inc. wants to dig for metallurgic coal nearby. 

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Enter Corb Lund, a winner of the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy and multiple Canadian Country Music Association awards. The 57-year-old Albertan wants provincial leaders to impose a moratorium on new coal projects in the eastern Rockies. 

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For almost half a century, new coal mines in Alberta were tightly restricted to a select group of areas. But in 2020, the province temporarily scrapped the policy and began selling mining leases in previous no-go zones, only to suspend those sales the following year. In 2025, the restrictions were lifted again, triggering legal action by environmentalists.

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“I’ve never spoken out in 30 years in the public eye about any issue politically ever, except for this one, because it was so egregious,” Lund said during an interview. “The risks are so high on this and the rewards are so low that the only people benefiting from it are the foreign coal companies and a handful of people that get the jobs.”

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A Rinehart representative didn’t respond to a request for comment

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Hancock Prospecting’s Northback subsidiary has reduced the size of its initial proposal by 40% and cut the planned mining rate almost in half to 2.5 million tons a year, Chief Executive Officer Mike Young said in an interview in Calgary. The developer also plans to build a water-treatment facility and bury selenium exposed during mining to negate the need for tailings dams, he said.

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“Just because your company is owned by a foreign company doesn’t give you any legal ability to shirk your responsibilities,” Young said. “We are a Canadian company that’s owned by an Australian company. We have all the obligations of a Canadian company owned by a Canadian.”

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Canada is the world’s eighth-largest producer of metallurgic coal and Alberta ranks No. 2 domestically behind British Columbia. 

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Although coal-fired power generation is being phased out in Canada, the price of metallurgic coal — the kind used to make steel — are near historic highs following a rally that kicked off in 2021.

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A joint federal and provincial review board rejected the Grassy Mountain project five years ago on environmental concerns, finding that “the adverse environmental effects on surface water quality and westslope cutthroat trout and its habitat outweigh the positive economic impacts.”