Coal & Allied ML1634

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This is mining lease ML1634 which is for Coal & Allied Hunter Valley Operations, one of the oldest and largest of the mines in the Hunter Valley area. Coal & Allied is owned by Rio Tinto at 80% and Mitsubishi Development at 20%, with the mine managed by Rio Tinto Coal Australia. The lease was granted July 31, 2009 with an expiry date of July 31, 2030. The approximate area is 4514 hectares and the lease falls under Act year 1992.

Operationally the HVO (Hunter Valley Operations) has 2 divisions, North and South which are divided geographically by the Hunter River. Each has separate approvals but is operated as one entity.

HVO North includes the West, Carrington, North Pits, and the mined out Alluvial Lands. Coal prepartion plants Hunter Valley, Newdell, and Howick are also part of HVO North as well as 2 train loading facilities: Hunter Valley load point, and Newdell Load point. When required the Ravensworth terminal is used.

HVO South includes the Cheshunt, Lemington, and Riverview pits as well as the Leamington coal preparation plant. Prepared coal from HVO South can be shipped from the the Mount Thorley coal loader for rail transport to the Port Waratah coal terminal in Newcastle.

The mining method used for the mulitple open cut operations is the dragline, truck and shovel method, with a production capacity of up to 12-15 million tonnes of thermal and semi-soft coking coal per year, with the majority being thermal. Coal is mined from the Wittingham Coal Measures of the Hunter Coalfield, which is part of a Permian coal basin known as the Sydney basin.

Within the HVO lease areas the Wittingham Coal Measures include 15 major individual coal seams over as many as 57 separate mining sections, with seam thickness varying from 0.3 to 6.5 meters. Typically Hunter Valley coal is high energy and has a low sulphur content with low S02 emissions. As of December 31, 2013 HVO had remaining marketable reserves of 277 million tonnes.

Seams present in the Cheshunt and North/Alluvial Lands include: Wambo, Whynot, Blakefield, Glen Munro, Woodlands Hill, Arrowfield, Bowfield, Warkworth, Upper Mount Arthur, Lower Mount Arthur, Piercefield, and Vaux. Seams present the North and West Leases include: Broonies, Bayswater, Leminton B, C, and D, Pikes Gully, Arties, Upper and Lower Liddell, and Barrett.

Historically some mining was done in areas around the West Pit in 1949 but large scale production did not commence until 1968 at West Pit which was then part of the Howick Mine. Coal & Allied started production at the Hunter Valley No. 1 mine in 1979 and at Hunter Valley No. 2 in 1991. In 1989 Kembla Coal and Coke, a subsidiary of Conzinc Rio Tinto Australia Ltd (CRA), and operated by Novacoal, a business unit of CRA, acquired the Howick mine.

Novacoal and Coal & Allied then merged in 1998 and Howick became part of the HVO, after which Howick was renamed West Pit. In 2001 the Leminton mine was purchased from ExxonMobil and added to the operations. In 2009 approval was granted for 21 years by the NSW Government to allow HVO south to operate under a single approval rather than multiple approvls. Part of this included the mining and beneficiation of a further 84 million tonnes of coal and major upgrades to facilities at the mine.