However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom for coal companies in the first quarter of 2011.

ILN noticed Mongolia was starting to emerge as a major coal destination for many junior companies based in Australia.

Hunnu Coal was granted the option to acquire an 80% interest in the Erdenes thermal coal project, while Perth-based Aspire Mining ramped up exploration at its Ovoot coal project, confirming the presence of coking coal.

Aspire said the deposit hosted 330.7 million tonnes of resources.

Guildford Coal also jumped on the Mongolian coal scene during Q1 of 2011, inking a $A7 million deal to initially acquire a 20% stake of Mongolia-based Terra Energy, owner of exploration licences in the South and Middle Gobi regions of the country.

At the time, the company said the acquisition would provide an opportunity for Guildford to become a coal producer within 12 months.

In March, six heavyweight bidders, including Peabody and Xstrata, were shortlisted by the Mongolian government to develop the Tavan Tolgoi mine, considered to be the world’s largest untapped coking coal deposit, with 1.2 billion tonnes of reserves.

Also on the shortlist were Vale, ArcelorMittal, a consortium of Shenhua and Mitsui and a consortium of Japanese, Russian and South Korean companies.

The Tavan Tolgoi deposit is expected to produce 15Mt annually for more than 30 years.

While Australian junior companies were heading overseas, Australian coal producers and explorers were still coming to terms with the effects of the Queensland floods and cyclone Yasi.

There was major damage to infrastructure, mine supplies and mine operations in the Bowen Basin, while key mining towns, such as Emerald, were hit the hardest.

QR National also took a hit from the floods, which damaged its rail network linking rail lines from coalmines with coal loaders at Gladstone.

In January, Queensland Resources Council chief executive Michael Roche said the coal mining industry was losing $100 million a day in exports.

At the time, about $1 billion of exports had already been suspended.

Coal companies, including BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance and Xstrata, were heavily impacted, with Xstrata’s Rolleston mine shutting down production.

However, it was estimated more than 40 mines in Queensland were shut down due to the closure of the Blackwater railway line.

Queensland treasurer Andrew Fraser said it would take years for the state to recover from the devastating floods, while the Gillard government did its part by imposing a flood levy on Australians earning more than $50,000 per annum to help rebuild infrastructure and communities hit by the floods.

The Pike River tragedy was still fresh in everyone’s minds in the first quarter of 2011, with police investigations into the mine disaster re-commencing in early January.

The recovery operation was also underway but was continually hampered by issues with the GAG (Gorniczy Agregat Gasniczy) unit – used to suppress mine fires – and cracks around the slimline hole which undermined efforts to control the underground atmosphere.

Sealing of the mine was discussed after the recovery effort dwindled when the police handed control of the mine to its receivers, PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Meanwhile, a coronial inquest into the disaster revealed the 29 miners were likely to have died within minutes of the first explosion at the mine.

It struck on Friday, November 19 and the second explosion on November 24 ended hopes for finding any more survivors.

Citing experts from the inquest, NZ Police superintendent Gary Knowles said the level of oxygen was about 1% and the first two explosions would have created temperatures of up to 2000 degrees Celsius.

ILN last year reported a Pike River Disaster Relief Trust fund was established and raised millions from donations.

The trust would reportedly pay sums of $NZ190,000 ($A123,825) to each family of the 29 men killed by the mining tragedy.

Another incident to hit the coal industry during the quarter was in Australia, after an underground fire ripped through Xstrata’s Blakefield South longwall mine in New South Wales’ Upper Hunter Valley on January 6.

All 50 miners were safely evacuated.

The fire was possibly triggered by a spontaneous combustion incident but Xstrata did not speculate on the cause.

At the time of the incident, a spokesman for Xstrata said the size of the fire was not possible to determine but it remained in the longwall area.