Blakefield South is designed to replace Xstrata’s nearby Beltana longwall operation in the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales, which was a longwall production leader for several years.

After completing development of the first panel in May, the longwall equipment at Blakefield South was commissioned in June.

The current focus is to ramp up the new colliery as Beltana is scheduled to cease mining in late 2010.

An Xstrata Coal spokesman told ILN that Blakefield South was moving into the full integration of its planned ramp-up.

He expects the new longwall operation to reach its goal rate of 6.5 million tonnes per annum of run of mine production by the end of 2011, resulting in about 4.5Mtpa of export thermal coal.

While ILN heard there was likely to be a tender for roof supports at Oaky North, this was not confirmed by the spokesman.

But this week Xstrata awarded WDS a three-year contract for major underground works at the Oaky Creek complex.

The spokesman said the work was part of continued development at the two Oaky longwall mines and just the “next stage of the process”

Oaky North is the leading longwall mine in the country with 9.69 million tonnes run of mine production for the 2009-2010 financial year.

“We’ve been able to get some serious coal out of there this year,” the spokesman said.

Xstrata is also pleased with how its Tahmoor longwall mine in New South Wales is travelling since the new enterprise agreement was struck early this month and finally ratified by Fair Work Australia last week.

The spokesman said good tonnages were coming out of Tahmoor and the workers were fully engaged.

The workplace agreements for the colliery and the wash plant expired in April 2009, and industrial action at Tahmoor first started on October 23.

Xstrata Coal has also inked new enterprise agreements at the Ulan and Bulga operations this year, while Xstrata’s Collinsville operator Thiess more recently settled its outstanding EA after some tense standoffs.