Wilkie creek

The Wilkie Creek Mine, that is located in south east Queensland's Surat Basin, commenced coal mining operations in 1994. It was acquired by Peabody Energy in 2002. The coal from the mine is railed to the Port of Brisbane where it is exported to Korea, Taiwan and Japan as fuel for their power stations. The workforce has been cut considerably in 2013 as Peabody Energy rationalises its coal mining operations throughout Australia in response to the global downturn in the world coal price.

Wilkie Creek Coal exported via the Port of Brisbane
The Wilkie Creek open cut mining operation produces a low nitrogen, low sulphur and lower emission thermal coal for the power generation industry in Asia. The coal is mined in the conventional open cut method of excavation, loading and trucking. Wilkie Creek coal is transported by rail 250 kilometres to the Port of Brisbane from where it is exported to its Asian customers.

Wilkie Creek Mine Includes 1,128 Hectares of Lease Tenements
The Wilkie Creek mine has lease tenements covering 1,128 hectares surrounding the mine site. It has applied for an expansion plan to be approved by the Queensland Government that would allow it to mine coal in new areas. This would extend the life of the mine and ensure ongoing economic and employment stability within the region. However, the instability in the world coal price over recent years caused Peabody Energy to place the mine up for sale in 2012. Several mining companies have shown interest but the mine remains under the ownership of Peabody Energy at the present time. Exploratory drilling in the proposed mine expansion area has indicated a reserve of 450 million tonnes is available.

Wilkie Creek has Extensive Rehabilitation Plans
Peabody Energy hold an approved Cultural Heritage Management Plan that covers its current mining lease and its rehabilitation work is successfully achieving set targets that are included in its comprehensive rehabilitation plan. The natural geographical surroundings of the Wilkie Creek Mine take in both light grazing agricultural land and native forest. The areas that have been disturbed, to allow the coal mining to proceed, are being progressively rehabilitated as they are being mined out. The company plans to leave a landscape behind, after all mining ceases at Wilkie Creek, that will be identical to the area that was there before mining commenced. One achievement so far has been reconstruction of a four hectare area that is capable of being planted as a grain crop.

Coal mined from the Wilkie Creek open cut mine has been extracted from the Tarcoola, Braemar and Kogan coal seams. Current operations are taking place at the Tarcoola deposit that consists of four principal coal seams that have a thickness of between 11.5 and nine metres.

Peabody Energy Corporation is the largest private sector coal mining company in the world. As a world body it produces three percent of global coal demands and 10 percent of electricity used in the United States. In 2010 it sold a total of 246 million tonnes of coal throughout the world.

The Wilkie Creek Mine is located 40 kilometres from the south eastern Queensland town of Dalby. It contains 380 million tonnes of recoverable coal and is currently producing about 2.3 million tonnes of coal a year. It is an environmentally superior coal much sought after in Asian countries.

Update July 2015- Peabody Energy Corp. has sold the Wilkie Creek coal mine to St. Louis-based Sekitan Resources Pty Ltd for $US20 million ($27 million) in cash and the assumption of $US55 million in liabilities. Sekitan is a subsidiary of Exergen Pty Ltd., an Australian clean coal technology company. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2015.