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The contract extension will push the mine life out to 2016 at a rate of 2.5 million tonnes of coal per annum.
Thiess started operating the mine back in 1996 and since then has extracted nearly 50Mt of coal from open pits within a 45-kilometre area.
Under the contract, mining is set to return to the original mining area of 1996.
“The high-quality coal will be mined to a depth of up to 240 metres, making this operation the deepest open cut operation in the Bowen Basin,” Thiess mining chief executive Bruce Munro said.
The workforce will exceed 500 people and Thiess will bring in a second Leibherr R9800 – one of the biggest mining backhoe excavators around.
The two big excavators will be serviced by a fleet of Caterpillar 797 trucks, the biggest in the manufacturer’s range.
