The South Walker deposit is situated within the Nebo Synclinorium on the eastern flank of the Carborough Syncline (Figure 1). Permian coal measures dip westerly at five to ten degrees, with dips steepening in the north in the Kemmis deposit. Locally the principal economic seam is the Main Seam, which splits to the north and south into Main Tops and Main Bottoms (Figure 4). The Main Seam is believed to be equivalent with the Elphinstone Seam (Leichardt) and upper part of the Hynds Seam, and extends over two kilometres in strike length in the south, comprising 10.5 to 14m of mainly dull to dull banded coal with minor mudstone partings. The Hynds Seam in South Walker has deteriorated to a sub-economic banded seam and displays seam splitting relationships present at South Walker Creek.

The Hynds Seam consists of three components: two coal seams (Upper & Lower); and the Yarrabee Tuff, and is equivalent to the Vermont seam, mined at the Poitrel Deposit. The Hynds Seam lies between 15 and 60 metres below the main seams, at an average of 32 metres, and varies in thickness across the deposit and tends to be heavily stone banded.

The Hynds Upper (HT) split is generally thin (one to two metres) and contains few stone bands. Underlying Yarrabee Tuff is commonly altered to clay and tends to be soft and puggy in nature with an average thickness of 0.5 metres and is problematic for coal washing if mined. Hynds Lower Seam (HB) tends to be substantially thicker (two to n ........

South Walker Creek is an open cut 100% pulverised coal injection (“PCI”) metallurgical coal mine, with coal marketed as ‘best in class’ low volatile PCI.
South Walker Creek has been operating since 1996 as an opencut operation and now has two fully owned Marion 8050 draglines operating, a contracted fleet of excavators, dozers and haul trucks, as well as fully owned fleet to support the dragline.

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 a ........

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