LTCC technology was developed in China to fully extract large underground seams and was introduced to Australia after Yanzhou Coal Mining acquired the Austar mine near Cessnock in 2004.

Whitehaven Coal has long flagged the possibility to retrofit its custom-ordered Caterpillar (Bucyrus) longwall equipment to use LTCC at its North Narrabri mine in the Gunnedah Basin of New South Wales.

The use of LTCC would target the full 8 to 9-metre thick Hoskissons seam, while conventional longwall mining at the mine would extract just a 4.2m bottom section of the seam.

Earlier this year, Peabody Energy secured an LTCC technology licence from Yanzhou to help mine an extra 3.54 million tonnes of hard coking coal from its North Goonyella mine in Queensland.

BMA is the latest coal producer in Australia to consider the technology.

While it did not announce plans to incorporate LTCC at Broadmeadow, the information was revealed in a recent job advertisement for schedulers on BHP’s website.

“With significant growth plans forecast for the mine and utilisation of longwall top coal caving mining methods, Broadmeadow is set to provide ongoing challenges and rewarding opportunities to further your career in mining,” BHP said.

BHP said Broadmeadow would produce 4.6Mt per annum of high quality coking coal.

In the recent 2010-11 financial year, the mine produced a total of 1.46Mt run-of-mine, including 1.26Mt from the longwall, according to data supplied by Coal Services.

A punch longwall mine in Queensland’s Bowen Basin, Broadmeadow targets the 6.8-8.2m thick Goonyella middle seam with extraction typically between 3.8m and 4.8m.

Yanzhou had been working with Bucyrus, before it was acquired by Caterpillar, for several years to further refine the LTCC technology used at Austar and the work to tailor it for Australian conditions appeared to be gaining further industry acceptance.