Warkworth CCL0753

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This is consolidated coal lease CCL0753 which is for the Warkworth Coal Mine, part of the Mount Thorley Warkworth complex, a combined operation of 2 open cut mining operations, Mount Thorley and Warkworth. It is owned by CNA Warkworth Australasia Pty Limited with 26.82%, CNA Resources Limited wtih 28.75%, Mitsubishi Development Pty Limited with 28,9%, Nippon Steel Australia Pty Limited with 9.53 % and Mitsubishi Materials (Australia) Pty Limited with 6%. Coal & Allied manages the complex on behalf of the joint venture owners,and is owned by Rio Tinto and Mitsubishi. The lease was granted May 23, 1990 with an expiry date of February 17, 2023. The approximate area is 4192 hectares and the lease falls under Act year 1973.

The mine began operation in 1981 and Coal & Allied purchased an interest in the mine in 2001. It is an open cut operation using draglines and shovels to expose and mine thermal and semi-soft coking coal from the Wittingham Coal Measures.

The mine is capable of producing up to 7 million tonnes of thermal coal, and 1.2 million tonnes of semi-coking coal per year. At the end 2013 economic reserves were 233 million tonnes. After being prepared the coal is loaded onto trains and shipped to the Port Waratah Coal Terminal in Newcastle.

In 2015 the Mount Thorley Warkworth mining extension proposal was approved, allowing the extraction of the remaining reserves of 230 million tonnes between both mines to be mined at a rate of 18Mt per year, for 21 years