The review will be headed up by former NSW premier Neville Wran.

"We had been travelling so well . . . then all of a sudden we had a sharp jump and we need to know what happened," a spokeswoman for NSW Mineral Resources minister Kerry Hickey told the Australian Financial Review.

The review will take written submissions and consult the Mine Safety Advisory Council before making recommendations to minister Hickey in December.

During November last year a contractor was killed at Anglo Coal's Kayuga mine near Muswellbrook when he was struck when a part of the lifting apparatus on a crane broke as a steel trailer was being unloaded from the back of a truck.

During May a rock fall killed a Roche Mining contractor at Anglo Coal's Dartbrook Mine while an accident when changing the tyre of a dump truck claimed another life at the Rio Tinto-managed Mount Thorley mine near Singleton.

A third accident on the same day at the Helensburgh Metropolitan Colliery left a man with serious injuries.