This would be part of the approved production limit of 4 million tonnes per annum from the colliery, the company said in its environmental assessment.
Angus Place’s proposed facility would be the second modification to its project approval.
The project would include development of underground roadways from the eastern extent of longwall 910 to the proposed ventilation facility and then further eastward.
The proposed trial mining would explore from the western to the eastern extents of the colliery’s Subsidence Assessment Area and be accessed via the underground roadways developed from the eastern extent of longwall 910.
This area has only been the subject of a surface exploration program and pre-feasibility assessment.
The trial mining would provide additional geological information to support the current surface exploration program and enable a more expansive view of the underground resource and mining conditions within the Angus Place mining lease area, the company said.
“While surface-based exploration provides a holistic representation of an underground resource and overlying strata, the fact that it is a single point within a large resource area is a significant limitation,” the company said.
“To provide a more expansive view of the underground resource it is important that trial mining is undertaken in conjunction with surface exploration activities.”
Coal would be transported underground to the pit top and via the two private haul roads.
The project would also require the construction and operation of a ventilation facility consisting of both exhaust and intake shafts, an air compressor station, emulsion mixing and supply plant, various services boreholes, electrical substation, self-bunded diesel storage tanks, back-up generators, internal roadways and hardstand area, spoil emplacement area, water management control ponds, and fire controls.
The ventilation exhausts would be laid horizontally. They would be approximately 8m in height and would expel a plume of water vapour to the side.
A new access track from Sunnyside Ridge Road to the ventilation facility and a 66kV/11kV electrical substation would be constructed.
A switchyard facility and security fencing and a 66kV trenched electrical power supply from existing powerline via a proposed switchyard and to the proposed substation following Sunnyside Ridge Road would also need to be constructed.
If approved, construction is expected start in January 2013 and continue to September 2015 with the ventilation facility slated to be operational from October 2015.
