The Kliprand Colliery is an opencast operation, in the Klipriver Coalfield of KwaZuluNatal.

The Klip River Coalfield is the most economically important and largest of the coalfields, with an extent of 6,000km2 , 50% of which bears economically extractable coal. Faulting in the area is known to have disturbed the coal horisons by, in some cases, over 137m in the vertical plane. Two economic seams are present, namely the Top Seam (0.5 to 3.3m thick) of bright coal and the Bottom Seam (0.5 to 1.3m thick) with comparatively less coa. Although the quality varies across the seams they both yield a generally high grade product with ranks from bituminous coal to anthracite. The best quality coals are produced in the central part of the field, with qualities decreasing and seams thinning to the north and south. Devolatilization of the coal by doleritic intrusion has caused the formation of lean coal and anthracite for domestic use. Methane gas trapped within fissures associated with dyke intrusions can be hazardous.

The Top Seam is often considered the correlation of the Alfred Seam within the Utrecht and Vryheid Coalfields. Similarly the Bottom Seam is considered the equivalent of the Gus Seam.

The roof and floor conditions of the seams are variable across their extent, consisting of sandstone and shale. The seams are separated by coarse-grained cross-bedded sandstone that fines up to carbonaceous shale. This forms a competent (strata or rock structure combining sufficient firmness and flexibility to transmit pressure, and by flexure under thrust, to lift a superincumbent load*) roof to the bottom seam while the roof of the Top Seam is considerably weaker and composed of micaceous sandy shale. Floors of both seams are composed of incompetent (applied to strata, a formation or a rock structure not combining sufficient firmness and flexibility to transmit a thrust and to lift a load by bending ) micaceous or sandy shale.

The Newcastle Project consists of a number of open cast and underground areas each with different access, different land ownership and different community groupings. Over the life of the mine, each of the opencast and underground areas will be mined separately although they will all share a common infrastructure and processing facility.

The Kliprand Colliery is the initial open cast area within the Newcastle Project where mining operations commenced during the 2019 year.

The coal wash plant was commissioned during the last quarter of 2020. The coal wash plant has a processing capacity of approximately 2 million tons Run of Mine (ROM) per annum with the frontend crushers and screens designed to process approximately 4 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) ROM. The plant has been designed to allow the addition of a second 2 mtpa module at a later stage. The plant has operated at a steady state capacity of 60 000 tons per month. Efforts are underway to ramp up throughput to achieve 75 000 tonnes on a monthly basis.

The company exported its first washed coal during 2021 year, this is sold at higher price compared to the previous ROM product.