Excerpts from the responses:

“Both Australian and U.S. mines have experienced little improvement in [development rates] over the past 10 years. Company-owned and operated mines are ‘stuck’ at average shift performances of 15 m in Australia and 45 m in the U.S. Part of the explanation for this problem is the general focus on the longwall face as it produce 85% to 90% of total mine output. The mine can always work an extra continuous miner shift, unit, etc., to provide a short-term solution to a development problem.”

(John T. Boyd Company)

For full survey response see John T. Boyd.

“The size of the potential prize can be seen by the fact that some of today’s longwalls are capable of producing 5,000 tonnes per hour. With 8,760 hours in a year, the theoretical capacity of a single mine is 43 million tonnes. Last year the best mine got only 12% of that figure.”

NorWest Mine Consultants)

For full survey response see NorWest.

“AMC believes that the underground coal industry should be devoting more resources to better understanding the physical environment they are working in through gathering background and real time geotechnical data, and applying the knowledge gained to improve mine planning outcomes.”

(Australian Mining Consultants AMC)

For full survey response see AMC.

“Many longwalls are still operating at availabilities around the 50%. If we equated this to an aircraft then 1 in 2 would crash- this is clearly not acceptable.”

(Palaris Mining.)

For full survey response see Palaris.

“The mine consulting industry is split into two main areas; those who are small, personalised and known directly to the mine personnel and the larger consultancies with a bankable name. The larger company’s can provide a diversity of expertise to staff any particular assignment ensuring conformity of output and more cost effective consultancy than a group of individuals performing the same task.”

(IMC)

For full survey response see International Mining Consultants (IMC).

“Use of contractors will continue to increase, but they often need just as much management as ‘normal’ operations! Giving all production functions including supply of equipment to a contractor has advantages in smaller limited life operations where they provide flexibility, but may not be as advantageous for larger longer term operations.”

(SRK)

For full survey response see SRK.

“Underground coal mining lacks a tradition of planning based on economic drivers, and tools for turning the economics into meaningful plans or at least guides to the plan. Plans today are derived based on minimizing longwall to development ratio while avoiding bad ground. This is a similar stage to open cut coal planning of 20 years ago, which used strip ratio as its only planning guide.”

(Runge)

For full survey response see Runge Consulting.

“Taken to the extreme, a suite of design factors and limitations (subsidence and other environmental limits, ventilation and geotechnical considerations, as well as the geological model) could be entered into the mine design package, which would then create and assess hundreds or thousands of potential mine designs, ranking them according to financial performance and risk exposure.”

(Minarco)

For full survey response see Minarco.

“Another change that appears to be affecting the industry has been the erosion of long-term stable, middle management at collieries, within colliery groups or even within government agencies. Staff reductions, high turnover and changes of ownership have, in some cases, meant a significant loss of retained knowledge at individual mines and a loss of broader perspective of geotechnical issues and their potential impact on individual operations.”

(SCT Operations)

For full survey response see SCT Operations.