The Carborough Downs project is located in the central Bowen Basin near the Peak Downs mine and is believed to predominantly host coking coal.

The mine will initially begin development with two continuous miners by the 2005 third or fourth quarter, by which time AMCI hopes to have secured a mining permit.

A decision to proceed to longwall mining will be made later.

In related news AMCI has submitted a development application for its 1.6Mtpa Werris Creek coal project, located approximately 4 km south of the town of Werris Creek in central northern New South Wales, according to Energy Economics.

AMCI hopes to have government approvals in place by the end of 2004. The open cut mine would be developed using conventional shovel-truck mining methods, with some throw blasting and dozing of overburden, Energy Economics said.

Based on the coal reserves of 9.8Mt the life of the proposed Werris Creek mine would be approximately 7 years.