The Yeppoon conference will be held at the Rydges Capricorn Resort in Queensland on June 19-21.

Day one of speakers will kick off with a presentation from Queensland Mines Minister Henry Palaszczuk, followed by a market overview by Barlow Jonker.

Next on the agenda will be a presentation from Australia’s highest producing longwall, Beltana.

The first main topic of the conference, thin seam mining, will be covered with presentations from the West Virginia University and DBT, Bounty Industries and IMC Consultants.

The second main topic, top coal caving, will be explored with a presentation from the China University of Mining Technology.

Anglo Coal’s Bruce Robertson and CSIRO’s Mick Kelly will speak on the 15 million tonnes per annum longwall project, followed by Strata Engineering covering recovery of longwall faces in difficult ground conditions.

Day two will open with a presentation from CRC Mining on using smarter equipment to increase productivity in longwall operations.

The day will then move into the main topic of longwall automation with a case study on Grasstree and a presentation of the Landmark Longwall Automation trials at the Broadmeadow mine.

CSIRO’s Rao Balusu will then look at inertisation strategies to control heatings and fires in longwall goafs.

Proceedings will then move into the area of clean coal technologies with a presentation by the University of Newcastle and CRC for coal in sustainable development. Also, a case study will be given on the Monash Energy/Anglo Coal CTL project in Victoria.

The closing topic of the day will centre on human resources and workforce issues with presentations from Mastermyne and the Australian Mines and Metals Association.