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 struct ........

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.

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