The spokesman erred when he told ILN on Friday morning that Ulan would only have two longwalls operating for “a short period of time” once Ulan West starts up in 2014.
As previously reported, the Mid Western Regional Council is pleased Xstrata will offer $4 million to help address expected social impacts of the $US1.1 billion Ulan West operation.
While Ulan West will have a mine life of 18 years, Xstrata said mining at the existing Ulan No.3 longwall operation would also continue for 10-18 years in an environmental assessment submitted in October 2009.
But in a response report to public submissions on the project in February 2010, Xstrata revealed the completion of all underground mining operations at Ulan No.3 could be 3-9 years away.
The Ulan West longwall mine is expected to create 350 operational jobs and 270 construction jobs.
Construction was slated to start in late 2010 but state environmental approval was required before Xstrata could make significant progress.
The planned Ulan West mine is targeting 6.7 million tonnes per year of export thermal coal.
Under the continued operations project, Xstrata will also resurrect open cut mining to make a broader Ulan mining complex.
The existing coal handling and processing plant and associated rail facilities will be upgraded to increase capacity from 10-20Mtpa of product coal.
Open cut mining is expected to last 11 years.
