John Holland made the cuts after being told of plans by the mine’s owners – Brazilian giant Vale and Japanese trading group Sumitomo – to scale down production at the open cut mine.
The mine holds around 65 million tonnes of coal and John Holland is providing full service mining operations to the Isaac Plains Coal Management, which was a joint venture between Vale and Aquila Resources.
On July 12, 2012, Aquila completed the sale of its 50% joint venture interest in Isaac Plains to Ocean Coal Mining, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Corporation, in a $430 million deal.
Isaac Plains started production in 2006 with an annual production capacity of 2.8Mt, of which coking coal for steel production accounts for approximately 70%, with the remainder thermal coal.
John Holland secured a 30-month mine operations contract valued at approximately $260 million to deliver works on behalf of IPCM.
The contractor provided full service mining operations at Isaac Plains, including clearing, topsoil stripping, drill and blast, truck excavator waste removal, coal mining, rejects haulage, dump profiling and rehabilitation works.
John Holland also operates and maintains the BE1370W dragline.
In the 2012 financial year, John Holland was tasked with the excavation of more than 50 million bank cubic metres of waste and mining of more than 3.8Mt of run of mine coal.
In its September production report, Vale itemised production of its half share of Isaac Plains under an “others” category.
Production of metallurgical coal from this category in the September quarter plunged to 169,000t – or by 25.6% compared to the previous corresponding period.
Thermal coal production in the “other” category for the September was down 3.4% year-on-year to 81,000t.
Sumitomo said most of the production would be supplied for export to Asian countries including Japan.
“The Isaac Plains coal mine, for which the right to use railway and port infrastructure has already been secured, is a comparatively low-risk and productive coal mine that possesses effective measures to guard against floods,” Sumitomo said in a statement when it acquired the Aquila stake in Isaac Plains.
“Sumitomo Corporation positions this participation as one approach to acquire a potential development project for the growth of mid to long-term earnings.”
