PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Mining major Glencore on Thursday announced that underground mining at its West Wallsend coal mine, in New South Wales, would be completed next year.
The decision to cease underground mining was consistent with the life-of-mine planning for the West Wallsend operation, the miner said.
Glencore said on Thursday that the company had considered a number of options to extend the mine life at West Wallsend, but the current coal market conditions did not support this avenue.
Instead, the mine would close some months earlier than originally scheduled, following Glencore’s decision not to mine an approved longwall block beneath cliff lines, terraces and steeper sections of the Sugarloaf State Conservation area.
As a result, development work at the mine would be completed by the end of June, allowing for mining to end by mid-2016.
Glencore had previously announced that it would reduce its Australian coal exports by about 15-million tonnes during 2015 to align its output with the current customer demand. Production initiatives would occur at a number of sites to lower coal exports, and would include some underground roster changes, the scaling-back of some openpit mining activities, and the revision to the product portfolio with the objective of tailoring volumes and qualities to better match current demand.
In addition to the direct operational changes, Glencore would also defer some projects to ensure that inventory management and blending were optimised.