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Australia

Ensham Mine

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Australia

Ensham Mine

Location: 35 km E from Emerald, Queensland, Australia

Address:

Duckponds Road
PO Box 1565
Emerald
Queensland, Australia
4720

Contacts:

Additional Resources for Suppliers & Investors

Categories

Summary

Mine TypeUnderground
StatusActive
Commodities
  • Coal (thermal)
Mining Method
  • Bord-and-pillar
  • Continuous
Production Start... Lock
Mine Life... Lock
SnapshotEnsham Mine is an underground coal operation extracting high-quality thermal coal from the Aries and Castor seams.

Originally opened as an open-cut mine in 1993, Ensham now operates exclusively underground, while surface activities focus on rehabilitating historic pits and disturbed areas.

The thermal coal mined requires no further beneficiation, with an assumed product yield of 100%.

Owners

SourceSource
CompanyInterestOwnership
Ensham Resources Pty Ltd. (operator) 100 % Direct
Thungela Resources Limited 100 % Indirect
Thungela Resources Australia Pty Limited (Thungela Resources Australia) owns 72.5% of Sungela Holdings. Sungela Holdings owns 85% of the Ensham Mine. On 28 February 2025, a further 15% interest in the Ensham Mine was acquired.

On 14 March 2025, Thungela announced that they entered into an agreement with Audley Capital and Mayfair to acquire their 27.5% interest in Sungela Holdings. Upon completion of this transaction, the Group will own 100% of the Ensham Business.

The Ensham Mine is operated by Ensham Resources Pty Limited.

Contractors

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SourceSource

Deposit type

  • Sedimentary

Summary:

Ensham is located in the south-central part of the Bowen Basin. The economic seams occur in the Rangal Coal Measures, which has an average thickness of 100m and a strike length of over 80km. The economic seams, contributing towards the reported resources and reserves, are the Aries and Castor with the Pollux seam included in the open cast resources. These seams have a typical economic thickness of 2m up to 6m. The Orion seam at the bottom of the package is considered uneconomical and is not reported.

The project area is bound in the east by the sub-crop on the Comet Ridge and in the west by depth. Normal faulting occurs throughout the deposit, ranging in throw from 2m to 20m. There are two principal orientation of faults, east-west and northwest-southeast.

Ensham produces only a limited amount of semi soft coking coal, with the majority product being a low ash, sulphur, high energy thermal coal. They can produce thermal coals with ash content between 10 to 16% and a calorific value of 6000 to 7000 kcal/kg. Total sulphur content commonly ranges between 0.6 and 0.9% and volatile matter is commonly in the order of 25 to 27%.

The general landscape of Ensham is approximately 150 m above sea level (ASL) and characterised by gently undulating plains with some rocky hills with elevations up to 250 m. There are four separate surface geologies:
- The predominant surface geology in the Study Area is an alluvial flood plain with stratified units from the Quaternary, including clay, silt, sand and gravel.
- To the north of zone 1 and 2 there is stratified sedimentary rocks from the Eocene, with deeply weathered claystone, siltstone, sandstone, gravel, lignite, oil shale and interbedded basalt.
- There is a small section in the north-east corner of zone 2 with stratified ferricrete from the Tertiary which is characterised by duricrusted paleosols at the top of deep weathering profiles.
- In the centre of zone 1 and 2 there is a section of arenite-mudrock from the early/middle Triassic containing sandstones, mudstone and conglomerate.

Reserves

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Mining Methods

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Heavy Mobile Equipment

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

Milling equipment has not been reported.

Processing

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Commodity Production

CommodityUnits202520242023202220212020201920182017
Coal (thermal) Mt  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe4.9 5.2 5.1 
All production numbers are expressed as ROM coal. ^ Guidance / Forecast.

Operational metrics

Metrics2024202320222021202020192018
Coal tonnes mined  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe4,875 kt5,239 kt

Production Costs

Commodity20252024
Cash costs (sold) Coal (thermal)  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
Total cash costs (sold) Coal (thermal)  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
^ Guidance / Forecast.

Mine Financials

Units20252024
Capital expenditures (planned) M AUD  ....  Subscribe
Sustaining costs M  ....  Subscribe

Personnel

Mine Management

Job TitleNameProfileRef. Date
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required May 29, 2025
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required May 29, 2025
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Jun 9, 2025
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required May 29, 2025
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required May 29, 2025

Workforce

EmployeesTotal WorkforceYear
...... Subscription required 2024
...... Subscription required 2023
...... Subscription required 2022
...... Subscription required 2021
...... Subscription required 2020
...... Subscription required 2019

Aerial view:

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