Roche Mining, part of the Downer Group, will step up efforts to enter the underground coal contracting business over the next 2-3 months.

Business development manager Ross Rinella said expansion of Roche Mining's traditional contract mining activities over the past two years into the highwall coal mining and underground hard rock mining areas, through the acquisition of Mining Technologies Australia and Faminco, respectively, had given the group a taste for both the coal and underground mining markets. It still needed to put in place an underground coal mining management team.

"That's what I'm trying to do at the moment," Rinella said. "You can say that in the next 2-3 months we're looking to pick up our capability in that area, and we're going to be seeking opportunities."

Downer is a multi-disciplined mining and engineering contracting company. Its four subsidiary units are Roche Mining, Century Resources, Downer Construction and Works Infrastructure.