The South Walker Creek consists of Kemmis-Walker, Tootoolah, Kemmis Creek Extended, Mulgrave, and Kemmis North open cut pits.
Open cut mining operations use a conventional strip mining method, using a combination of dragline, excavator, dozer push and cast blast.
General activities undertaken in the mining process at the South Walker Creek include:
• Land clearing and topsoil removal.
• Overburden / inter burden drilling and blasting.
• Excavator and truck stripping.
• Dozer stripping.
• Excavator and truck parting removal and post stripping.
• Dragline stripping.
• Coal ripping and pushing.
• Coal loading and hauling.
• Pit preparation and dewatering, and
• Reclamation.
Geology and topography of the South Walker Creek mine area is such that the strip-mining technique has been adopted as the mining method. Initial mining operations commenced on the sub-crop of the Main seam in 1996 and 2006 respectively using fleets of excavators and trucks as the primary overburden removal tools to uncover coal in strips orientated along the strike of seam.
Mining then progresses along strike and down-dip to the lease boundary or to a depth of maximum economic strip ratio, at which point a transition to underground mining may commence. Mining strips and blocks are aligned with current pit voids along strike and extended down dip to the lease boundaries. Allowances are made for permanent ac ........