Bowen Coking Coal has picked BUMA Australia to provide mining services to its 100 per cent-owned Broadmeadow East (BME) mine in Moranbah, with an option to extend those services to the Burton mine and agreed rates and tonnages.
First phase mobilisation of site infrastructure, ancillary equipment, haul trucks and a EX3600 excavator are underway, with site works expected to kick off within the next two weeks.
The Broadmeadow East Project was acquired from Peabody Energy in June 2020 for $1 million plus a royalty of $1 per tonne for the first 1.5 million tonnes sold.
The project hosts a 33 million tonne resource and was initially planned to be mined through conventional truck and shovel open cut mining at a rate of between 0.8 million tonnes and I million tonnes per annum, over a period of between five to seven years.
A fast tracked program for this contract targets the same tonnages to be mined at an average rate of about 1.2 million tonnes per annum over a shorter period.
Bowen Coking Coal managing director and chief executive officer Gerhard Redelinghuys said BME was a critical building block in Bowen’s plans to become Australia’s next significant independent coking coal producer.
“The rapid start-up of production from BME will be a testament to the team’s ability to transform a greenfields project into a producing mine in a short time frame. Bringing BME into production diversifies the Bowen production base and will be the first of a number of our metallurgical coal projects to be exported from the world class Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal,” he said.
“It’s a great time to be bringing on our second producing asset in this extraordinary high-priced environment. We believe the outlook for metallurgical coal continues to strengthen, driven by continued growth is steel demand and enormous barriers to new supply.
“This agreement with BUMA puts Bowen in a very strong posltion to expand produCtlon further via a quick start-up of the larger, adjoining Burton mine post transaction completion.”
Coal mined from BME will initially be hauled to Fitzroy Australia’s Carborough Downs CHPP where it will be washed and exported to global steel producers through the Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal under an infrastructure access agreement.
