Narrabri

The Narrabri underground coal mine is located adjacent to the Kamilaroi Highway, 28 kilometres south of the Gunnedah Basin town of Narrabri, in New South Wales. The mine is operated by Narrabri Coal Operations Pty Ltd for the Narrabri Joint Venture partners that consists of ; Whitehaven Coal with 70 percent shareholding and Electric Power Development, EDF Trading, Upper Horn Investments Limited, Daewoo International Corporation and Korea Resources Corporation with seven percent each.

Narrabri Mine Produces a High Energy Export Grade Thermal Coal
The Narrabri Mine is presently producing a high energy export grade thermal coal. The mine management does however, in the future, intending to produce a coal mix it anticipates will contain up to 40 percent low ash, low phoshporus, low sulphur, mid volatile PCI (pulverised coal injection) coal and a 60 percent high energy thermal coal for export.

Narrabri Mine Produces six Million Tonnes of Coal Annually
At the end of June 2011, the Narrabri underground coal mine completed it first full year of development production and is now working with four continuous miners. The Whitehaven longwall mining method is producing six million tonnes of run-of-mine (ROM) coal a year, with an additional half million tonnes a year of ROM coal remaining available from the gates and mains development until 2025. Following the completion of the first longwall panel, it was installed by mining contractor SBD-Delta. The same contractor provided ongoing underground development support. Commissioning of the longwall took place in May 2011.

Narrabri Mine Longwall is the Most Advanced in Australia
The installation of 10,000 tonnes of mining equipment with 7MW of installed power, along with the completion of the longwall commissioning, marked the completion of the construction phase of the Narrabri Mine. The Narrabri longwall is one of the most advanced in Australia having the latest safety and automation features. It represents one of the most significant milestones of the Narrabri project and marked many years of hard work.

Eightyfour Percent of Whitehaven Workers are Local Residents
Whitehaven is proud of the fact that almost 84 percent of its workforce resides locally as the company policy is based on developing and maintaining a locally-based workforce wherever possible. The company plans to employ over 1,000 employees over the next five years. Now and again it will find it necessary to organise fly-in-fly-out workers, particularly during construction periods but its underlying intention is to focus on employing local workers whenever they are available, to do this it is prepared to bring people into the region to train and set up home there on a permanent basis.

Narrabri Coal is Exported out of Newcastle Port
The coal mined from the underground Narrabri Mine is processed on-site. It is then taken to the coal handling facility and loaded onto railway carriages, on the rail loop, that takes it to the Newcastle port for exporting to overseas countries. The Narrabri Shire municipal area has been estimated to contain around 12 percent of the New South Wales total coal reserve. The Narrabri Mine is situated in the northern section of the Gunnedah Basin, in the Mullalley sub-basin area, to the west of Boggabri Ridge. The coal seams mined by the Narrabri operation are the Melvilles and Hoskissons seams. The Hoskissons seam is located at depths of between 250 and 160 metres and has a coal face 10 metres thick.
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