Ewington

The Ewington open cut coal mine is located 10 kilometres east of Collie in Western Australia. It is 100 metres deep and consists of two open pits, the Ewington 2 mine that commenced operations in 1996 and the Ewington 1 mine that began production in 2009. The Ewington Mine primarily produces thermal coal but because there are several coal faces being mined at different depths it is able to obtain flexibility of coal types for blending purposes. The coal mined is taken directly to the company's clients by means of either road or rail transportation.

Ewington Mine Owned by Indian Company Lanco Infratech Limited
The Ewington Mine is owned by Indian company, Lanco Infratech Limited, through the company's wholly owned subsidiary, Griffin Coal. Griffin Coal is Western Australia's oldest coal mining company that currently has a resource base of 1.1 billion tonnes. It has experienced financial difficulty in the recent past but Lanco Infratech expects to be in a financial break-even situation by the end of the 2013 financial year. Coal production is planned to reach five million tonnes by December 2013. Its current production rate is 3.2 million tonnes a year. Lanco Infratech acquired the Griffin Coal Mining Company in 2011 through its Australian subsidiary Lanco Resources Australia.

Ewington Coal Supplies Both the Domestic and Export Markets
The Ewington Mine that supplies coal to the Australian domestic market, as well as to the export market, lies within the Premier Coal Measures near Collie, south of Perth and is gradually advancing down a coal seam dip to the east from where it began 17 years ago. There are three coal seams being mined at the Ewington operation averaging from three to 1.5 metres in thickness and four associated seam splits, of up to one metre in thickness, within a 25 metre vertical section. The mine is presently being developed to a deeper depth to incorporate three more coal seams. The seams at the Ewington Mine gently dip but are also subjected to an occasional wash out and structural faults. These are managed during the mining process that now exists as a two kilometre strip that runs parallel to the coal seam sub-crop.

Mining at the Ewington Open Cut Follows Conventional Methods
The mining method used at the Ewington open cut coal mine follows the conventional technique that is carried out in distinct operations, as follows:

1. Top soil is first removed from the site to be mined and is either stockpiled to be used at a later date for rehabilitation work, or spread directly on to shaped rehabilitation areas that have already been mined out. This work is carried out using bulldozers, front end loaders and haulage trucks.

2. The cap rock that lies below the top soil and above the coal seam, can be up to two metres thick. This is removed by blasting, or ripping by bulldozers. Much of it is used for road building purposes. The overburden is generally drilled with the use drilling rigs and blasted free with a mixture of fuel oil and ammonium nitrate. After it is blasted the overburden is loaded into rear dump trucks by either a front end loader or hydraulic excavator. It is taken to overburden dumps that are usually at a part of the open cut that has been completed. It is put to use here as backfill.

3. Once the coal deposit is exposed it is mined and subjected to a processing procedure that involves crushing to a uniform size, screening and general beneficiation, the washing and cleaning of the coal in order to improve its quality by removing contaminants.
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