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PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Diversified miner Glencore plans to restart mining activities at the Integra underground coking coal mine, in the Hunter Valley, as the price of metallurgical coal continues to rise.
Glencore acquired the Integra mine, then known as Glennies Creek, from major Vale last year. The mine has been on care and maintenance since July 2014.
Glencore said on Tuesday that the Integra mine would produce 1.3-million tonnes a year of high fluidity saleable coking coal in 2017, to meet a specific need identified in the metallurgical coal market.
However, with a number of the company’s thermal coal mines having recently closed, or near the end of their scheduled mine life, production at Integra is not expected to increase Glencore’s overall coal sales from Australia.
The company is hoping for an early 2017 restart.
Meanwhile, Glencore announced that its Black Star opencut zinc mine, in north-west Queensland, had moved to care and maintenance, after mining out the existing reserve.
The mine, which began production in 2004 with an initial life expectancy of eight years, delivered about 40-million tonnes of ore over a 13-year mine life, containing 1.75-million tonnes of zinc metal and nearly one-million tonnes of contained lead.
Over the past three years, Glencore has implemented a staged workforce transition programme, with several of the employees at Black Star redeployed at other operations.