In his presentation at Wilson HTM’s Focus on Coal conference today, Centennial chief financial officer Robert Dougall detailed the progress made on the company’s portfolio of mines and projects in New South Wales.

First coal from the Airly continuous miner operation came in December with mine commissioning underway and set to finish in April.

Centennial is still recruiting for additional production crews, while first export coal is expected this quarter.

The company is aiming for 1.6-1.8 million tonnes per annum of coal from the mine, which will be exported through Port Kembla.

The export infrastructure for Centennial’s flagship Mandalong longwall mine is “nearing completion”, with a new haul road to increase exports.

Over to the Clarence continuous miner operation, Dougall said the build and surface testing of the flexible conveyor train had been completed and that training had begun.

The FCT goes underground this month with full production expected in two months.

A prefeasibility study into the Newstan Lochiel project is due this quarter, with the project to use existing infrastructure at Centennial’s Newstan mine to reach 4Mtpa of ROM coal production.

The drilling program is more than 65% complete with more than 40 holes drilled. The project is targeting semi-soft coking coal as well as thermal coal, with total resources at 150.5Mt as of mid-2009.

In other exploration, drilling is ongoing at the Angus Place North East area with longwall layout options under assessment.

Centennial has appointed a project manager for the Inglenook project, which covers 123 square kilometres thanks to three new western exploration licences.

The thermal coal producer expects Inglenook to have synergies with its Charbon and Airly infrastructure and an exploration program is being developed.

Production forecasts

Mandalong was in fourth place for Australian longwall production in 2009, reaching 5.06Mt of ROM coal.

For this financial year Centennial is expecting the mine to hit 5.4Mt.

The Angus Place longwall mine is forecast to reach 3.4Mt for the same period, while the Springvale longwall and open cut operations are expected to produce 2.8Mt.

For the continuous miner operations, Clarence is forecast to reach 2.1Mt, Myuna 1.3Mt, Mannering 900,000t and Awaba 800,000t.

The Charbon mine is expected to produce 1.2Mt from continuous miner and open cut operations.

Centennial shares closed up 3.8% to $3.85 today.