World-class Coals - November 2007 (complete) (PDF, 2.3 MB)

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Vermont
The Lake Vermont Coal Project Joint Venture has
committed to develop a new open-cut mine on the
Vermont coal deposit to produce about 3.5 Mt/a to
4 Mt/a of coking and PCI coals for the export market.
The Joint Venture partners include: QCMM (Lake
Vermont) Holdings Pty Ltd (70%), Marubeni Coal Pty
Ltd (10%), Catherine Hill Resources Pty Ltd (10%) and
Coronar (Australia) Pty Ltd (10%).
The deposit lies within the Rangal Coal Measures
about 18 km north-east of Dysart and east of the Saraji
Mine. The project has been at an advanced stage for
some time as the required mining lease (ML 70331) was
granted to Bowen Basin Coal Pty Ltd, a 100% owned
subsidiary of Queensland Coal Mine Management Pty
Ltd, on 27 October 2005 for a term of 30 years.
The Lake Vermont Coal Project Joint Venture announced
on 10 October 2007 that it would develop the new mine
to be built and operated under contract by Thiess Pty Ltd
with construction commencing early in November 2007
with a workforce peaking at about 350.
Saleable coal production is planned to commence by
the first quarter of 2009 and initially, will be railed to
the Port of Gladstone for export to customers worldwide.
The mine is expected to have approximately 280
permanent employees.
The joint venture is considering possible options to
reserve rail and port capacities that would also allow the
coal to be exported through the coal export terminals at
Abbot Point and Hay Point.
Queensland's World-class coals (November 2007)
www.dme.qld.gov.au
Wandoan
Xstrata Coal Queensland Pty Ltd and its joint venture
partners control large resources of high volatile thermal
coal in the region around Wandoan in the Surat Basin of
southern Queensland.
The company is investigating the feasibility of
developing a new open-cut coal mine with a production
capacity of about 15 Mt/a of saleable coal. In May 2007
the joint venture lodged applications for MLs 50229,
50330 and 50331 covering a total area of
32 107 hectares. The mine would have an expected life
of more than 30 years.
The project requires a new 207 km rail connection
(Southern Missing Link) from Wandoan to Banana to link
to the Port of Gladstone, a total rail distance of about
385 km, where the planned Wiggins Island high-capacity
coal terminal would load the coal for export to markets,
mainly in Asia.
In July 2007 the Queensland Government confirmed
an exclusive mandate for a consortium to build the
Surat Basin Railway with the project conforming to the
Government’s ‘Public Private Partnership Value for
Money’ criteria.
The consortium comprises the Australian Transport and
Energy Corridor; Dawson Valley Railway Pty Ltd; Industry
Funds Management; Queensland Rail (QR) and mining
companies Xstrata Coal and Anglo Coal.
Key milestones which the consortium must meet under
the mandate include:
•
the awarding of preliminary engineering and
environmental consultancies by the end of July 2007
Trial pit at the Austinvale deposit showing 6 metre thick coal seam – Wandoan, 1989
Photo: R. Smith, DME