The mining and commodities trading giant cut about 300 open cut jobs from the Newlands complex last year when it reduced the surface mining areas from three to one.

Citing difficult market conditions, Glencore said Newlands would continue to support a workforce of more than 650 after the 100 job cuts are made. Employees first heard the news yesterday.

“Where vacancies exist, we will explore options for redeployment across our Australian coal operations as well as putting in place support services for affected employees and their families,” Glencore said.

Last year Glencore also flagged plans to retrench 196 jobs from the Newlands Northern longwall operation in the last quarter of 2015 as the end of its underground mine life approaches.

While the Newlands complex has production capacity of 11 million tonnes per annum, Glencore expects the thermal and coking coal mine’s output to be impacted by the looming job cuts.

It indicated that other cuts within its coal mining portfolio could emerge.

“Glencore continues to review all coal operations in an increasingly difficult economic climate,” the diversified miner said.