Mangoola

The new Mangoola open cut coal mine in New South Wales's Hunter Valley is situated 20 kilometres west of the town of Muswellbrook and 10 kilometres from Denman. It is owned by Glencore Xstrata through its wholly owned subsidiary Mangoola Coal.

Mangoola Open cut Coal Mine Developed by Parsons Brinckhoff
The 10.5 million tonnes a year Mangoola Mine was developed by
contracting company Parsons Brinckerhoff that had the responsibility of bulk earthwork removal, the construction of water retaining dams, the construction of mining and railway infrastructure, the building of new roads, site preparation and the erection of various buildings. The firm completed all it was contracted to carry out three months ahead of schedule and with costs coming in under budget.

Mangoola Mine Employs up to 300 Personnel
The construction phase also included a coal handling and preparation plant (CHPP) capable of producing export quality thermal coal for both the overseas and domestic market. A coal loading terminal and railway loop has also been constructed to transport the coal along the Muswellbrook/Ulan railway line to Newcastle. The Mangoola mine already employs around 300 personnel and is a major local employer, a welcome change when many other coal mines have been closing down throughout the country. Expansion plans are already being reviewed and when approved will increase production to 13.5 million tonnes a year and create jobs for a further 150 people for the next 20 years.

Mangoola Mine previously Known as Anvill Hill
The Mangoola open cut coal mining project was originally owned by Centennial Coal that had named it the Anvill Hill Mine. Glencore Xstrata acquired the project from Centennial Coal in 2007 and renamed it Mangoola. The mine is worked as a conventional truck and shovel open cut mining operation exploiting an, up to now, undeveloped coal reserve of an estimated 150 million tonnes. The overburden covering the coal seam at the Mangoola Mine is between the extremes of 15 metres and 90 metres in thickness, although the Awaba seam is only covered by overburden with a depth of between nine and 10 metres. The Awaba coal seam is between the deeper Fassifern and Great Northern seams.

Local People Preferred by Mangoola Mine Management
Mangoola Coal have a policy of hiring local people to work at the mine wherever possible. To this end they have been willing to overlook experience and will train new employees while on the job and following their chosen career paths. The company also has a policy of raising the female content of the workforce to 21 percent. Work training at the Mangoola Mine is carried out on various diversified mining equipment. Supervisor personnel have the job of skilling up fellow employees to facilitate them reaching the next step in their careers.

Before its amalgamation with Glencore, Xstrata was a Swiss multinational mining corporation with its headquarters in Zug, Switzerland. It was the world's largest producer of thermal coal. Xstrata had operations in 19 countries including; South America, North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. On May 2, 2013 it was wholly acquired by Glencore making it one of the largest mining companies in the world.
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Successful Application to expand

Mangoola Coal Operations Pty. Ltd applied to the Minister for Planning and Infrastructure to modify Project Approval in 2013. Following assessment by the Department of Planning and Infrastructure, and review by the Planning and Assessment Commission, the modification was approved on 28th April 2014 to increase mining intensity from a maximum rate of extraction from 10.5 million tonnes per annum ROM coal to 13.5 Mtpa ROM coal.

Note- GlencoreXstrata was formed following a merger of Glencore International and Xstrata, the merger was completed in May 2013. But a decision was made by the Company's shareholders during the annual general meeting and the announcement was made in May 2014 that Glencore will drop Xstrata and be simply known as Glencore.