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The proposal, made to efficiently mine the existing Pit 3, has a development footprint of about 10.3ha.
However, most of this was within land previously disturbed by the adjacent Griffin coal mine with Yancoal saying 3.6ha of the proposed area needed clearance of native vegetation.
While the pit extension is going into Griffin’s turf the activity is covered under a joint boundary mining agreement between the neighbouring coal miners.
In regards to possible alternatives to extract the targeted resources, Yancoal ruled out other open cut designs along with highwall and underground mining as economically unfeasible
By sticking to the currently approved footprint Yancoal believes that a pillar of 855,000 tonnes of raw coal will be unmined.
“This would be inconsistent with the joint boundary mining agreement between Premier and [Griffin owner] Lanco, which requires both parties to work constructively towards maximising coal recovery (where viable) along the lease boundary,” Yancoal said.
“It would also result in a kink in the open cut, which would change the mining schedule and reduce operational efficiency within Pit 3.”
Yancoal aims to mine the proposed area in the December quarter over a 6-10 month period.
The domestic power station-supplying mine is 15km southeast of Collie.
