[4] Banpu was founded by members of the Vongkusolkit and Auapinyakul families on 16 May 1983 as Ban Pu Coal Company Limited.

Banpu plans also to invest in the Hong Sa lignite mine and power plant project in Laos.

[7] Due to its coal mining operations, Banpu was named on a 2019 list of the 100 companies "...responsible for most of the world's greenhouse gas emissions".

[10] The company sells approximately 40 percent of its coal to export markets, primarily for use in power stations and steel mills in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Europe.

[10] Centennial Coal has been responsible for more than 900 pollution notices between 2000 and 2013 from the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA).

In 2015 it was responsible for a major release of coal fines into the Wollangambe River and World Heritage listed areas of the Blue Mountains National Park.

[11] Centennial Coal has been dumping mine effluent into the Wollangambe River for approximately 30 years, effectively killing large sections of it.

[13] As of 2015, Centennial Coal has applied to extend the Springvale Mine, undermining swamps of "National Environmental Significance"[14] and dumping up to 50 million litres a day of mine effluent into the Coxs River which also flows through the Blue Mountains World Heritage area and into Sydney's drinking water catchments.