Company directors, Andrew Watts, Darren Hamblin and Les Eckhart, are currently looking at expanding both geographically and into the growing area of gateroad and mains development work.

Two years ago, Mastermyne specifically targeted longwall relocation work as a growth opportunity for contracting. The union movement had become less intransigent about labour ranks being periodically swelled with contractors, and management had undergone a rethink about what core competencies should be retained and performed inhouse.

"We identified a growing niche market to supply coal mines with contract labour during peak periods. Longwall relocation, longwall maintenance and longwall minibuilds typically fall into this area," Watts said.

In addition, the increasing shift towards paying on a production bonus was seen as opening up further opportunities for contractors who could come in and do non-production related work. In a production driven mine, one major advantage of contractors is they can perform this type of work during downtime, such as on weekends, and therefore have minimal impact on production cycles.

"In addition, a crew that relocates seven longwalls in a year is going to be better than a crew that does it once a year," Watts said.

Last year, Mastermyne completed the longwall relocation for a large central Queensland mine. The contract provided for four weeks from breaking the chain to first coal. Despite the loss of one week due to bad roof conditions the contract went only a day over four weeks.

"The biggest challenge was carrying the maingate and tailgate drives which were all over 60 tonnes," said Mastermyne director Les Eckhart. "The shearer had 300mm clearance on either side of the roadways. There was 50mm clearance taking maingate drives through airlock doors. Taking two 936s through with a 60t tailgate drive is a challenge for your operators to move without causing damage.

"We spend a lot of time with our people, talking it through, putting manuals together and making sure everything's secured and done safely."

Eckhart, who has worked at several underground coal mines, said using contractors was always cheaper than having employees perform the same work. While the hourly rate paid to a contractor is typically around double the hourly rate paid to an employee, contractors were cheaper if you factored in housing, superannuation and associated on-costs, he said.

Eckhart said mine management now understood this but residual resistance from the unions remains.

Mastermyne gives fixed price contracts "in a bid to share the principal's risk," Watts said. "It is Mastermyne's aim to totally manage the work of longwall relocations, therefore reducing the workload of operational staff who can then focus on their core business objective of producing coal at low unit costs."