In the ceremony attended by 200 invited guests, the Premier unveiled a black marble plaque to mark significant progress in the construction of the US$170 million project which will provide high quality coking coal for domestic steelworks and the export market.

The Dendrobium Mine will be a low cost underground longwall operation capable of producing 5.2 Mtpa of raw coal (3.6 Mtpa of clean coal). The main customer for the coking coal is the Port Kembla steelworks, which is located seven kilometres from the mine site. Construction activities associated with the mine surface facilities and ventilation shaft are essentially complete. Commissioning of the coal loading facilities (Kemira Valley) is underway with the first trains loaded during September 2003.

Construction activities associated with the washery upgrade and the thermal drier installation are well underway. The project is approximately 45 per cent complete with two of the three trunk conveyor belt installations being successfully commissioned.

Just over 65 per cent of the projects capital has been committed to date. The capital forecast remains unchanged at US$170 million. Forecast longwall commencement is tracking ahead of schedule and is expected in the first quarter of 2005.

Wayne Isaacs, President BHP Billiton Illawarra Coal told guests the mine provided a long-term future for the companys coal mining operations in the Illawarra.

Dendrobium is the first new mine investment in the New South Wales southern coalfields in more than 20 years, and has been established as a greenfield site," he said.

It will employ approximately 150 mine employees and generate an additional 800 direct and indirect jobs. The mine has the potential to inject more than A$400 million into the regional economy."