Thiess awarded six-year contract to extend mining operations at Peabody's Burton Coal Mine in the Bowen Basin
January 19, 2011
Thiess is continuing to build a strong pipeline of work after today announcing a six-year $1.3 billion contract to extend mining operations at Peabody’s Burton Coal Mine in the Bowen Basin.
Just yesterday the Queensland-based company reported it had won a major coal seam gas upstream infrastructure contract in Queensland.
The landmark contract with Queensland Gas Company (QGC) has a value of approximately $136 million for early works projects near the centres of Miles and Chinchilla in the Surat Basin.
Managing Director David Saxelby says the Peabody contract is recognition of Thiess’ position as Australia’s leading contract miner.
Thiess has operated the Burton Coal Mine for the past 14 years and this contract will prolong the life of the mine until 2016.
It will also allow Thiess to maintain the mine’s annual production capacity of over 2.5 million tonnes of coal per annum.
Thiess Mining Chief Executive Bruce Munro says the Peabody contract will see operations return to the original mining area started in 1996.
“The high quality coal will be mined to a depth of up to 240 metres, making this operation the deepest open-cut operation in the Bowen Basin,” Munro says.
The Burton Coal Mine extension will employ more than 500 people and will see Thiess mobilise an additional Liebherr R9800 – one of the world’s largest mining backhoe excavators – to work in tandem with the first excavator which has been operating at Burton for nine months.
A fleet of Caterpillar 797 trucks, the largest in the Cat range, will service the two big excavators, emphasising the scale of the work.