A record 220 delegates attended IIR’s Longwall 2008 conference held at Cypress Lakes Resort in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales, with day one of the program awash with case studies from the Southern, Hunter Valley and Western coal fields in NSW and from Queensland’s Bowen Basin.

While boils, bums and cats do not usually rate a mention at your average longwall conference, industry stalwart Gareth Jones managed to work it into his presentation on Anglo Coal’s Bundoora mine, namely the mine’s location right in the centre of an open cut operation.

Jones’s presentation detailed how the operation had successfully mined through an igneous plug, aka Gareth’s plug.

While his speech incorporated other gems, including the observation that Australians would rather pick up a brown snake than a shovel, Jones detailed how the mine was able to drill and blast through the hard rock and set the foundations for the longwall to successfully cut through the plug.

As for “the best little coal mine in the West”, the proclamation came from Springvale site check inspector Paul Irwin and mine deputy Mark Seckold who detailed the mine’s award winning “Vent safe” sliding door. (See ILN story on Vent Safe here)

Irwin and Seckold revealed that since their presentation of the patented door at the Innovation Awards, several orders from other mines had been placed with Springvale for the mine-bred door.

BHP Billiton Illawarra vice-president of operations and morning chairman Jim Middleton kicked off day one’s proceedings with a look at the issues the coal industry faces – including safety, global warming, environmental issues and community perception – stating industry needed to be “progressive and proactive” in tackling all the issues.

“Who knows what will come – all we know is that we will change,” Middleton said.

Looking specifically at some of the issues BHP Billiton Illawarra faces was West Cliff operations manager Dan Clifford and coal clearance coordinator Mark Peace.

Clifford spoke on the challenges and complexities faced at the longwall operation. He explained how the operation had taken hold of these complexities – which included outburst potential, methane levels, surface features, approvals, ageing mine infrastructure, depth and ventilation – and turned them into opportunity.

Peace detailed how the mine had initiated a project to overcome coal clearance delays presented by an old 800t per hour winder system. By simply changing practices at the operation and introducing some new monitoring technology, West Cliff was able to go from losing 2.6-2.7 hours per week due to bin delays to 0-0.2 hours per week delays today.

One of the newest longwall mines to join the industry was present with Vale’s Carborough Downs project manager Andy Mifflin detailing the complexity of faults the mine faces and the way these have been defined and detailed through an extensive exploration program.

Event platinum sponsor Joy Mining Machinery brought controls and automation global engineering director Mark Schaeffer and longwall shearer manager Kenny McCallum along to the conference to look at the technology advancements made over the past 30 years and the OEM’s direction going forward.

They also posed the question of whether increased installed power on the longwall was the answer to increased productivity rates, or if the way forward was more about utilisation.

BMA longwall projects coordinator Luke Mahoney spoke on a weighting event at the Crinum mine and how that was overcome, as well as the fresh era the mine faces now it has moved to a new area.

Afternoon chairman and Xstrata’s Ulan operations manager Murray Wood updated the crowd on the progression that Ulan’s “fat face” had made after surfacing from a few years of hard slog.

“At Ulan now things are really starting to come together,” Wood said, adding the mine had only recently hit a weekly tonnage record.

Anglo’s Moranbah North longwall superintendent Leon Du Preez, who is a relative newcomer to coal after spending years on gold and platinum mines in South Africa, looked at the new equipment the mine will be installing underground next year.

The afternoon session of Broadmeadow automation engineer Glenn Owens and CSIRO principal research engineer David Reid looked at Broadmeadow’s successful implementation of LASC automation, with Owens giving some tips for other mines looking to implement the technology.

Reid said there was a commitment from eight longwall mines to install the technology. Next year Moranbah North, Carborough Downs and Blakefield South will put LASC underground.

The day ended with a presentation by NSW University Mining Engineering head Professor Bruce Hebblewhite who detailed the findings and recommendations from the Underground Coal Mining in the Southern Coalfield report.

“It would be foolish to assume there wouldn’t be any knock-on effect to other areas,” Hebblewhite said upon being asked what ramifications the findings had outside the Illawarra region.