Collected every year by Coal Services (ex Joint Coal Board) and the Queensland Department of Natural Resources & Mines, the final data is due to be published around May 2002 in Australian Black Coal Statistics. (The data does not cover brown coal statistics.)
The total figure was 9% up on the 303Mt produced during the previous corresponding period, with open-cut production mostly accounting for the increase.
Total open cut production rose by 12% during the period, from 212.08Mt to December 2000, to 238.86Mt to December 2001. Queensland mines accounted for 141Mt (or almost 60%) of 2001 open-cut production while NSW accounted for 88.48Mt, or 37%.
Underground coal production (from both longwall and bord and pillar mines) rose by only 1% during the period, from 91.85Mt produced to December 2000 to 93.187Mt for the year to December 2001. Of that amount, longwalls contributed 85.128Mt and bord and pillar mines 8.059Mt, (81.90Mt and 9.951Mt for the previous period, respectively).
This means of Australia’s total coal production in 2001, longwalls produced 25%, with bord and pillar contributing around 3% to the total. In total, NSW underground mines produced 54.507Mt, followed by Queensland with 38.228Mt. Tasmanian bord and pillar operations produced the remaining 452,000t. Underground coal mining is not conducted in other Australian states.
