The coal producer announced last week that it would cease production at the mine following years of unprofitability.

BMA cited a high Australian dollar, unfavourable mining conditions and industrial action as the reason for the announcement.

Approximately 1400 positions will be affected by the ceasing of operations.

A report by the The Northern Star claimed Sandvik was set to deploy unmanned loaders and dump trucks at the mine, prior to the decision to close it.

The report said that Norwich Park was set to be a “testing ground” for the equipment.

However a spokesman for BMA confirmed to ILN it had no plans to automate Norwich Park.

“In the near term, BMA does not have any plans to roll out full automation across its operations,” the spokesman said.

BMA rejected the claim that automation equipment could be the key to restoring the mine.

“The Norwich Park review findings indicate that profitability can only be restored through significant changes to the mining sequence, mining processes, workforce structure and organisational arrangements,” the spokesman said.

“There is a significant amount of work to be done to reposition the mine in the manner identified by the review team.”

The decision to halt production at Norwich comes after the company admitted production at the mine had been declining for about five years.

BMA is looking to redeploy its Norwich Park employees Saraji mine.

BHP’s share of production from Norwich Park was 1 million tonnes last year, down from 1.9Mt a year earlier and accounted for around 5% of BMA’s production last year.