Underground mines produced 2.086Mt, a slight improvement on the 1.956Mt produced a year ago. Open cut mines produced 11.699Mt.
Some 11.922Mt of coal was exported, with coking coal making up 8.414Mt of the total. Thermal coal exports totalled 3.508Mt. Queensland used some 2Mt of total coal produced, mostly for power generation.
Employment continues to creep up going from 11,695 this March to 11,906 people employed this April. Last April in 2003, 10,415 people were employed by Queensland’s coal industry. Average output per seven hour employee shift was 53.89t.
The ports that handled Queensland’s coal were Dalrymple Bay (3.782Mt); Gladstone (3.692Mt), Hay Point (3.066Mt) and Abbot Point (1.293Mt).
