Geologically there is a dome structure (the Pinang dome) in the centre of the property. Overburden is mainly sandstone, siltstone and mudstone. Early mining focused on the edges of the dome and virtually all coal seams dip away from this region.

A total of 13 seams range in thickness from 1 to 15 m; typically in the range of 2.4 to 6.5 m. Seam dips vary from 3º to 20º at the outcrop. The coal occurs in the Balikpapan and Pulubalang Formations and the three main coal seams are called Kedapat, Pinang, and Sangatta. The coal is generally lowash and low-sulfur and has low in-situ moisture content. In some parts, the coal rank has been increased, by igneous intrusion, to a high volatile bituminous coal.

Mining is carried out by truck and shovel method in open pits. A number of open pits are in operation at any one time, operated by KPC and contractors. The current fleet capacity is 545 Million BCM per annum. All servicing and maintenance is carried out on site. Mining operations are carried out 24 hours a day for 365 days per year. Areas to be mined are initially logged and the top soil removed and stockpiled for later rehabilitation before blasting, overburden removal and coal extraction takes place. The overburden is dumped out of pit or in mined out areas for later rehabilitation.

From the Melawan mining area there is an additional crushing facility and 10 km conveyor that meets the CHPP, avoiding additional coal trucking movements. At the CHPP there are six roll crushers while the Melawan crushing complex has an additional two roll crushers. There is a fixed 13 km twin covered overland conveyor (OLC) with a capacity of 2 x 32 Mt/y or 64 Mt/y in all connecting the main ROM stockpile and Coal Handling and Preparation Plant (CHPP) to the Tanjung Bara Coal Terminal (TBCT) port.

The Sangatta coal preparation plant has a clean coal crushing capacity of around 7100 t/h and wash plant feed (dirty coal) crusher capacity of 300 t/h. The nominal top size of product coal is 50 mm. The majority of ROM coal is low as clean coal and can be crushed for direct shipping with no further preparation necessary. Only around 1.4 Mt/y of “dirty coal” from the roof and floor of seams is processed through the dense medium cyclone preparation plant for a recovery of approxima ........