Mine Details
Donaldson
http://www.doncoal.com.au
thermal-black-coal, Town, DiDo
Phone:
Address:
92 Four Mile Creek Road, Ashtonfield, NSW, 2323
State: 92 Four Mile Creek Road, Ashtonfield, NSW, 2323
Email:
The Donaldson open cut mine, 23 kilometres from the Port of Newcastle, in New South Wales, commenced mining in 2001, on a mining lease within both the Cessnock and Maitland Shire Council areas. It is Donaldson Coals largest coal mine.
Donaldson Mine is now Part of The Fast Growing Yancoal Group
Donaldson Coal is now fully owned by Yancoal Australia following Yancoal merging with Donaldsons previous owner Gloucester Coal at a cost of $8 billion in July 2012. This merger made Yancoal one of the country's biggest pure-play coal producers. Yancoal was only listed on the Australian stock exchange in June 2012. Yancoal's largest shareholder, Yanzhou Coal Mining Company, is one of China's largest coal miners. It is listed on both the New York and Hong Kong stock exchanges. Yancoal now operate eleven coal mines in Australia's richest coal areas of New South Wales and Queensland and one in Western Australia.
Donaldson Open Cut Mined in the Conventional Manner
Coal is taken from the Donaldson open cut mine in the conventional manner by shovel and truck haul back practices. The top soil and overburden being removed and stockpiled for later use as rehabilitation of the site becomes necessary. Once the coal seam is exposed it's progressively removed and the backfilling begins with the overburden and top soil being replaced and the site revegitated. Coal loss is minimised and out of seam dilution avoided to avoid loss of quality.
Raw black coal extracted from the mine is taken by truck on the mine's own private roadways to the Bloomfield Colliery's coal washing and loading plant that's only a little over a kilometre away from the Donaldson mining operation. The product undergoes sufficient washing to bring it up to export specification before being taken by rail to the port at Newcastle for shipping overseas.
Mine Owner Yancoal is an Innovative Mining and Exploration Company
Since being formed in 2004, Yancoal is already being recognised as one of Australia's more innovative coal mining and exploration companies as it goes about its business of acquiring and developing its coal mining assets. It is doing this by way of introducing its own underground mining speciality of Longwall Top Coal Caving (LTCC). LTCC coal extraction methods involve excavating thick coal seams on one pass of the longwall equipment. This generates higher productivity and better returns generally. By using this method Yancoal is able to access a further 80 percent of the coal seam. Yancoal introduced the LTCC method of coal mining into its underground operations in 2006 after acquiring the Southland Coal Mine.
When the Donaldson open cut coal mine owner, Yancoal, became listed on the Australian stock exchange it was the largest public listing to take place there for over 18 months. It's parent company Yanzhou Coal, owns 78 percent of Yancoal with large Singapore commodities company owning 13 percent. Former owner Gloucester retained a nine percent interest in the new company. Yancoal currently have resources totalling 3.5 billion tonnes of coal and reserves of 697 billion tonnes. It also has investments in two major coal export terminals being part of the Newcastle coal infrastructure group at Kooragang Island in NSW and at Wiggins Island in Gladstone, Queensland. The company acquired Felix Resources for $3.3 billion in 2009. It also owns the Premier mine at Collie in Western Australia.
