Bulga ML1547

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This is mining lease ML1547 which is for the Bulga Coal Mine that is owned by the Bulga Joint Venture and includes Saxonvale Coal Pty Ltd with 87.5% and Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Australia Pty Ltd with 12.5%. The lease was granted April 5, 2004 with an expiry date of April 2025. The approximate area is 5805 hectares and the lease falls under Act year 1992.

Bulga Coal Management operates and manages the daily activities of the mine for the joint venture owners. Saxonvale Coal Pty Limited is 100% owned by Oakbridge Pty Limited. The ownership of Oakbridge is as follows: 78% for Enex Oakbridge Pty Limited (100% owned by Glencore), 15.2% for JX Nippon Oil & Energy (Australia) Pty Limited , 5% for T omen Panama Asset Management S.S and 1.8% JFE Shoji Trade Corporation .

The Bulga coal mine includes both open cut and underground operations which are capable of producing up to 16 million tonnes of semi soft coking and thermal coal a year from the Redbank, Wambo, Blakefield, Glen Munro, and Woodlands Hill seams which are part of the Whittingham coal measures. Underground mining focuses specically on the Blakefield seam.

Pre-stripping for the open cut and exposure of coal seams is undertaken using shovel, truck, and dragline. Exposed coal is mined by excavator and front end loader then loaded onto trucks for transport to the preparation plant.

The underground mine uses the longwall method to mine from the Blakefield seam in the south and north operations. Blakefield south longwall panels are 400 meters wide and up to 3.5 kilometers long. The seam is 130 to 355 meters below surface. The roadways to access the longwall panels are typically 5 meters wide by 3 meters high, constructed down the length of the longwall.

The coal preparation plant has an annual capacity of 20Mtpa and processes coal from both open cut and underground operations. Transported coal is stockpiled in the ROM stockpile, then waste components such as clay and sandstone are removed and stored as tailings or thickened and co-disposed in the overburden dumps. Coal is then crushed to less than 125mm particle size and washed, screen, rinsed, and dewatered. The final product is loaded and shipped by railto the port of Newcastle.