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The $767 million Maules Creek mine, the largest open cut coal mine currently under development in Australia, will begin railing coal two months ahead of schedule in January 2015.
The new production date was announced to the Australian Stock Exchange today.
The mine, now almost 70 percent complete, will be the biggest employer in the region, and contribute $13 million to Narrabri Shire Council for local roads and Narrabri airport upgrade, plus royalties each year.
A group of community, council and business visitors and media representatives were hosted on a tour of the mine on Wednesday.
They inspected hundreds of millions of dollars worth of infrastructure - rail bridges, roads, rail lines, earthworks and processing plants - which will ultimately be staffed by 400 workers producing and shipping coal to Asia.
In a presentation to visitors on a community and media tour on Tuesday, Whitehaven CEO Paul Flynn confirmed the project was ‘on schedule and on budget.’
Whitehaven has signed off on state and federal approvals, management plans, cultural heritage salvage commitments and a legal challenge, Mr Flynn said.
“Whitehaven is operating under the highest environmental standards and requirements in the NSW mining industry.
“The Maules Creek project is creating 400 new jobs - 100 are engaged in construction. Our policy is to employ locally where possible” Mr Flynn said.
The Maules Creek mine site is a hive of activity, with massive trucks carting 300 tonne loads of overburden, fed by huge earthmovers, hauled on internal roads damped for dust suppression.
Earthworks are built in readiness for basalt ballast, crushed on site, to carry kilometres of rail tracks, now being welded in sections ready to be laid.
Thirty kilometres of track will link to the main northern rail line, with several kilometres carried high over the floodplain, crossing newly built bridges across the Namoi River and the Kamilaroi Highway.
The coal handling and processing plant is nearing completion.
Coal may be loaded straight out of the mine on to rail wagons for Newcastle, or may be diverted to a stockpile or to a coal washing plant before being railed on its 380km journey to Newcastle and exported to Japan, Korea, India, Taiwan and other Asian countries.
The initial rate of production of the sought after high quality, high CV, low ash and sulphur thermal coal and metallurgical coal will be six million tonnes per annum from March next year, ramping up to 13 million tonnes.
