Mt owen

The Mount Owen open cut coal mine located in the Upper Hunter Valley of NSW and 20 kilometres from Singleton, is operated for its owners Xstrata by Thiess Contractors using hydraulic excavators for both steam and soft black coking coal production and overburden stripping.

Mine Owner Xstrata is a Swiss Mining Company
The mine owner Xstrata, a Swiss based global mining company, also owns the nearby Ravensworth and Glendell coal mines. Production from these mines are now amalgamated with that of the Mount Owen mine making for an expanded complex. Ravensworth East mine, another Xstrata mine that produces solely for the export market, also sends its coal to the processing facilities at Mount Owen. The complex now exports in excess of 15 million tonnes of coal annually.

Mount Owen itself is graced with being able to extract coal from nine seams . These seams range from being 10 metres thick down to just 500mm. Thicker seams are located where the strata is folded. Reserves at the site exceed 440 million tonnes.

Thiess are the Mine Operators at Mount Owen
The operating contractor at the mine, Thiess Contractors, operate it as a shovel and truck open pit mining operation that primarily relies on hydraulic excavators for coal production as well as for stripping the overburden. The deposit itself is of a dipping structure that has benches at every five metre vertical interval. Thiess has had responsibility for all the design work, construction and commissioning of the Mount Owen coal mine including the coal preparation infrastructure. In setting the mine up Thiess incorporated a number of innovations that included the 700 tonne double chamber hopper in the ROM ( Run of Mine) dump area. It also uses Abon sizing technology as opposed to the usual rotary breaker technology. The reasoning behind this decision being lower the production of fine coal when crushing this means the operation doesn't require any separate screening.

High Quality Coal Taken to Newcastle for Shipping Overseas
The infrastructure also has a 2,000 tonne surge bin feeding the dual module washing plant. This in itself operates by utilising dense medium spirals and cyclones that produce the semi-soft coking coal, mid ash thermal coal and low ash thermal coal for export purposes. Rejects are handled via an automated bin straight into haulage to be taken to waste dumps. The marketable de-watered coal product goes to a 300,000 tonne stockpile from where it is loaded into rail cars at a speed of 4,000 tonnes an hour. This train takes the coal seven kilometres to the main freight line to the west of Camberwell where it is then taken to the port at Newcastle for shipping overseas.

The Mount Owen complex of Glendell and Ravensworth East are all owned by Xstrata Mount Owen, formerly the Hunter Valley Coal Corporation, for its parent company Swiss owned Xstrata. Thiess contracting operate the mine on a daily basis under an agreement with the owner. All the Xstrata mines in the locality; Mount Owen, Ravensworth and Glendell, utilise the existing processing plant and coal handling infrastructure at the Mount Owen mine. The Mount Owen mine has approval to mine 15 million tonnes of ROM coal from the site each year. This is a high quality semi soft coking and thermal coal that mainly finds its way to South East Asian countries for power generation or for the making steel.

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.

Overview of Mt Owen Coal Mine