Abel

The Abel black coal mine in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales is 25 kilometres from Newcastle, it is accessed via a decline with the portal situated off the high wall of the Donaldson open cut mine. The mine lease area is bounded by Buttai Creek to the west, the F3 Freeway to the east and southward from John Renshaw Drive toward George Booth Drive.

Abel Mine Owned by Yanzhou Coal Mining Company
The Abel coal mine is owned and operated by Donaldson Coal a fully owned subsidiary of Yancoal which is, in turn, a part of the large Chinese mining organisation, the Yanzhou Coal Mining Company Limited.

Abel Underground Operation Uses Bord and Pillar Mining Method
The Abel Mine is operated with a bord and pillar mining technique which makes use of continuous miners for both first workings and secondary extraction. This two stage method of mining allows for the mine's irregular shaped deposits that requires adjustment for extraction and better subsidence management, as well as improved efficiency. The Abel Mine uses the Donaldson open cut surface infrastructure as well as the Bloomfield CHPP (coal handling and preparation plant), a rail wagon loader and rail loop.

Coal From the Abel Mine is Processed at Bloomfield CHPP
Once coal is extracted from the Abel underground mine it is taken by conveyor through the Donaldson open pit high wall the the Donaldson infrastructure area. From here it is taken to the Bloomfield CHPP for processing and loading onto railway wagons for transporting to the port at Newcastle for export.
When taken to the Donaldson infrastructure area the coal is initially deposited onto stockpiles depending on its type and origin. It is then taken by front end loaders to either ROM (run-of-mine) hopper one or two:
ROM hopper No. 1 uses a rotary breaker to size the coal to 100mm before transfering it to a stockpile or direct to the washery by way of a surge bin.
ROM hopper No. 2 sizes the coal to 50mm. It also has a raw coal by-pass that takes this product to a middlings stockpile from where it is directly loaded onto railway wagons. The coal that requires processing is taken to a 1,000 tonne surge bin before it enters the washery.

The coal washery utilises a two stage washing process by means of dense media circuit using cyclones. The two stage circuit comprises a fine coal circuit and a course coal circuit:
The fine coal circuit. This circuit consists of a classifying cyclone that divides the coal depending on its particle size as well as a floatation cell and a screen bowl to centrifuge an ultra fine stream to separate the reject coal.
The course coal circuit. A circuit that makes use of centrifuges and clean coal screens to recycle magnetite used in the media as well as de-watering before it leaves the plant. The reject is separated into course and ultra fine coal. Ultra fine reject finds its way to the thickener and course reject to the course reject bin.

Product coal is coal that has been either processed by the washery or been subjected to sizing. It is taken by conveyor to the rail loading facility where it is stored in the rail loading surge bin to await loading. The railway wagons move slowly beneath the surge bin that regulates the loading
process. The loaded train then transports the product coal to the Newcastle port for export.
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