At full production the mine will produce five million tonnes of thermal coal per annum to be supplied to coal to synthetic fuels company Sasol over 20 years.

Construction work on the project began in November 2003 and the first coal was supplied to Sasol's Synthetic Fuels in July last year.

So far the mine has supplied more than 2Mt to Sasol and expects to produce 4.5Mt by the end of this year.

Anglo Coal produced 93Mt of coal last year with almost 57Mt from South Africa, 26Mt from Australia and 10Mt from South America, Reuters reported.