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Bloomfield colliery can now extend open cut mining to recover the additional tonnage at a rate of up to 1.3Mt of ROM coal per year.
The New South Wales Department of Planning also approved the use of the existing infrastructure and progressive rehabilitation of the site will continue.
It is expected the mine will continue to employ 66 workers for a further 12 years, 10 of which will be spent mining and two rehabilitating the site.
As part of the approval, Bloomfield is required to establish a Community Enhancement Fund of $500,000 to assist with community development projects and offset the socio-economic impact of the project.
The coal-bearing seams mined in the Bloomfield lease are in the Tomago coal measures. Located below the Newcastle coal measures, the seams include Rathluba, Big Ben, Donaldson, Elwells Creek and Whites Creek, followed by the uncorrelated A, B and C seams and the Buttai seams.
The mine uses an EX 5500 excavator and 170t rear dump trucks to mine up to 13 seams using a multi-seam, multi-bench system.
Dozers, front-end loaders and highway-type trucks deliver the ROM coal to the onsite washery, which also processes coal from the Donaldson and Abel mines.
Mine owner Bloomfield Group, an Australian-owned group of private companies, also operates the Rix’s Creek open cut at Singleton.
