Thirty-two longwall mines produced a total of 23.653 million tonnes of ROM coal (including more than 2Mt of development coal). Annualised, this suggests the mines are operating at around 94.612Mtpa. Australia’s longwalls produced 84.122Mt of raw coal in the 12 months to June 2001.

The quarter’s top performers were MIM’s Oaky North operation (1.960Mt); Anglo Coal’s Moranbah North mine (1.679Mt); Rio Tinto’s Kestrel (1.506Mt); and the two Enex Resources mines - South Bulga (1.338Mt) and Ulan (1.140Mt). The top three were all Queensland located.

The top five producers closely mirror the results for the 12 months to June 2001, except for the absence of BHP Billiton’s Crinum mine (third top producer for the 12-month period), which has been struggling with difficult strata.

For the quarter, the number six spot was held by MIM’s Newlands mine which produced 1.134Mt, followed by the Anglo Coal German Creek Southern mine with 1.130Mt for the period. The latter mine broke its 1998 full year production record of 3.3Mt in the week beginning November 26. Southern mine could potentially hit its highest figure of 3.5Mt in the 12 months to December 2001.

For the first time, the JCB stats listed the clearance capacity of each mine. For the top performers these figures were:

Oaky North – 6500tph

Moranbah North – 6000tph

Kestrel – 5000tph

South Bulga – 4000tph

Ulan – 3000tph

Newlands – 5500tph

Southern – 2500tph

See table of statistics.