Austral’s longwall Tahmoor North produced 480,000 tonnes during the December quarter, bringing year to date tonnage to 1.7Mt.
Austral said price negotiations for next contract year production were positive, with over a 120% price hike and favourable renegotiation of 2004 contract carryover volumes.
During December Tahmoor North opted to implement a series of major rectification actions to address engineering deficiencies and to secure the tailgate area. Whilst these activities ate into production, since Christmas the Tahmoor North team has seen vast improvements in face condition and equipment performance.
“The company and the original equipment manufacturers successfully addressed outstanding equipment shortcomings and roof stability issues in the longwall tailgate which resulted from the slow rate of mining,” Austral said.
Production in January to date has been excess of 100,000 ROM tonnes.
