Baralaba Coal Mine

Location

The Baralaba mine is located near the town of Baralaba in south eastern limb of the Bowen Basin, Queensland. The coal mined is from the Rangal coal measures, and the operation sits within a larger 550km2 area of Cockatoo Coal exploration projects.

Mine Production

Baralaba produced 98,948 tonnes of coal in the March 2010 quarter, a lower amount than in previous quarters due to significant rains in the local catchment area that required operations to shutdown for a considerable length of time during the period.

Operations subsequently resumed without incident.

  September 2009
Quarter
 December 2009
Quarter
 March 2010
Quarter
 Nine Months ended
31 March 2010





ROM coal (tonnes)
 144,166 156,145 98,948 399,259
Overburden (bcm)
 1,218,078 1,287,417 687,575 3,193,070
         

Mine planning

Reflecting the significant growth in export coal demand forecast globally to occur during the next 10+ years, planning is being undertaken with a view to staged expansion of output from Baralaba mine and the Company’s nearby exploration grounds.

Currently approximately 20Mt of JORC coal resources have been defined immediately North along strike from the existing Baralaba open pit, with significant further exploration and project development efforts to continue through 2010/11.

The company currently anticipates increasing production from Baralaba to ~750,000tpa by FY2011/12.