Overview

Mine Type	Open Pit
Status	Active
Commodities	Coal (thermal)
Mining Method	Truck & Shovel / Loader
Production Start	...
Mine Life	...
Snapshot	The Premier Mine is a flexible operation extracting from a wide selection of coal seams to enable consistent production of a premium low-ash, sub bituminous black coal with excellent combustion properties. The coal also has low sulphur content, generates low levels of noxious gases during combustion, and can be transported easily.

Deposit type

• Sedimentary

Summary:

The Collie Basin is a northwest to southeast trending, elongated rift structure bounded to a large degree by major faults, with a maximum throw possibly in excess of 2,000m. The basin is thus subdivided into three depressions, namely the Cardiff, Muja and Shotts Sub-basins.

The coal-bearing sequence, of Sakmarian to late Permian age, is approximately 1,200m thick and is confined by Archaean rocks dominated by granite and granite-gneiss.

The Permian sequence commences with glacial deposits and then contains three main coal-bearing members in which coal comprises less than 5% of the material. Mining at Premier would be confined to the Premier Member (equivalent to the Chicken Creek and Collieburn Members) which has 15 major seams (greater than 2.Om thick) and numerous smaller seams and seam splits.

Interburden is dominated by fine to very coarse-grained, porous sandstones with lesser interbeds of siltstone and shale. The sequence is variably overlaid by the Cretaceousaged Nakina Formation which contains reworked Permian sediments. The high proportion of sandstone in the sequence makes the Collie Basin a major reservoir of groundwater.

The Premier Deposit is essentially a broad, shallow basin with dips of between 30 and - 80. Only minor internal faulting is known with throws up to 20m recorded.

There are three types of coal occurrences (Baarda, 1966):
• Trace coal (laminae) and carbonized black and lignitic brown plant fragments.
• A ‘coal zone’ consisting of interbedded and interlaminated coal and clay with occasional, relatively uninterrupted seams of coal up to 0.9 m thick. This coal is mainly black, finely laminated and the thickness of this zone varies; however, the thickest occurrence is 7 m.
• A seam 0.9 – 2 m thick with only minor clay. This coal is mostly black, hard, sub-bituminous and high ash with a conchoidal fracture and a well-developed cleat (Baarda, 1966).

Premier reported dips of up to 6° and a relative density of 1.45 for the Paradise core samples (Baarda, 1966). The high sulfur is due to the presence of pyrite and marcasite (Piggot, 2009).

Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

Processing

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Production

Commodity	Units	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018	2017	2016	2015
Coal (thermal)	Mt	....	....	....	....	5.6*	5.9*	6.5*	6*	6.4*

Operational metrics

Metrics	2023	2022	2021	2020	2016	2015
Coal tonnes mined	....	....	....	....	4.2 Mt	4.8 Mt
Raw coal annual capacity	....	....	....	....

Personnel

Job Title	Name	Phone	Email	Profile	Ref. Date
.......................	.......................				Apr 29, 2024
.......................	.......................	...........	...........		Apr 29, 2024
.......................	.......................				Apr 29, 2024
.......................	.......................				Apr 29, 2024

Total Workforce	Year
......	2022
......	2021
......	2020