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An underground fire struck the new longwall operation in early January, triggering the successful evacuation of around 50 workers.
Xstrata Coal reported the fire was extinguished within a few days, while recovery work then focused on cooling the temperatures underground through the injection of inert nitrogen.
More recently, specialists decided there was enough coolant underground to take further steps.
A borehole was drilled from the surface and intersected an area of the sealed mine, which allowed the reintroduction of oxygen underground.
“It appears that there may have been an ignition at that point,” An Xstrata spokesman told ILN of the combustion incident which occurred around two weeks ago.
The spokesman confirmed there were no flames underground, but some form of heat must have been retained in the area.
He added that gas monitoring confirmed that an ignition took place.
As a response, measures were taken to shut this work down, starve the area again of oxygen and reintroduce more inert nitrogen into the mine.
Xstrata is currently considering “a few” other options that may be available, but the spokesman would not speculate on them at this stage, other than saying the company’s first priority was safety.
“We are yet to assess what caused the ignition in the first instance and we are yet to be able to determine when we may be able to get down there,” he said.
The spokesman added the ignition incident was not as dramatic as perhaps some people were trying to make out.
A union source held a very different view of the recent incident, and told ILN there was potentially up to four explosions over a four-to-six hour period.
In other updates, the Xstrata spokesman said the Ulan longwall mine in the state was yet to resume production after its recent setback where heavy rainfall caused significant water seepage underground, triggering force majeure on coal delivery contracts.
He added that the company was hoping that the damaged rail servicing its Rolleston open cut mine in Queensland would be repaired by the end of this month.
