While the Joint Coal Board (JCB) collects and publishes productivity figures for individual mines in NSW, the Queensland government only publishes statistics for the underground sector by district, which means a comparison between operations is not possible.
JCB statistics for New South Wales show that the South Bulga mine of Enex Resources was the state’s most productive longwall mine for the year 2000-01.
The mine, which has been the most productive for the last three years, recorded 22,888 tonnes per employee of raw coal (excluding coal preparation plant employees). This is over double the NSW industry average of 10,537t/e for the year and above the Queensland average of 14,981t/e.
The top producers in order (for NSW) were:
South Bulga – 22,888t/e
Baal Bone - 19,963t/e
Wambo – 15,232t/e
Ulan – 15,068t/e
West Wallsend – 14,464t/e
Dartbrook – 12,182t/e
Cumnock – 11,765t/e
Worth noting is that of the top seven most productive mines in NSW, five are owned by Enex Resources. These are South Bulga, Baal Bone, Ulan, West Wallsend and Cumnock. The productivity improvements are a testament to the workforce restructuring Enex has undertaken with the purchase of the operations.
Eleven of the twenty NSW longwall mines produced over 10,000t/e, while four mines recorded productivity of over 15,000t/e for the year, compared with only two in 1999-2000.
Individual productivity stats for all NSW mines may be found on this website in individual Mine Profiles entries.
The Queensland minerals department does not publish statistics for individual mining operations – statistics are recorded for the underground sector by district. Recently released figures for 2000-01 show Queensland’s Northern district underground mines produced 13,086 tonnes of raw coal per employee (14,115t/e in 1999-00). The Central region mines produced 15,935t/e (15,091t/e in 1999-00).
Productivity for Queensland’s underground mines averaged 14,981t/e in 2000-01, a slight improvement on the 14,739t/e in 1999-00. This figure is based on total underground production of 38.320Mt ROM and total employee figures, including contract labour, of 2558.
Queensland’s open-cut average is 23,252t/e, up on 19,603t/e for 1999-00.
