PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Coal miner Paringa Resources had delayed the first coal sales from its Poplar Grove operation, in Kentucky, by two weeks until the week of April 22.
The ASX-listed company on Tuesday said that the delay in coal sales resulted from the decision to install the slope conveyor sooner than originally planned, as the run-of-mine volumes being brought to the surface via underground mucking and transportation was lower than expected owing to a directive from the Mine Safety and Health Administration that limited operations to one loader.
The slope conveyor being installed will have the capacity to transport up to 2 000 t of run-of-mine material each hour from the slope bottom, and will enable Paringa to further improve the planned ramp-up of production from Poplar Grove.
The company told shareholders that although the first shipment of coal will be delayed, the establishment of the permanent ventilation system and operations using the mine slope conveyor would allow Paringa to start a typical underground room and pillar mining sequence, increasing mining advance rates and eliminating the haulage bottleneck currently limiting the mine’s production ramp-up.
The 2.8-million-tonne-a-year Poplar Grove thermal coal mine forms part of Paringa’s 40 000-acre Buck Creek complex, which also contains the 3.8-million-tonne-a-year Cypress mine, where construction is set to begin in 2019.