Carborough Downs, which is a 100% metallurgical coal underground mining operation, obtained a new quarterly record in 4Q13, at 814,000t, showing good performance after the longwall move in 3Q13, according to the company.

The significant improvement in the performance of Carborough Downs helped the company achieve 8.8Mt of coal production in 2013, 23.7% above the 2012 figure, but 3.6Mt below its annual guidance for coal.

Production of metallurgical and thermal coal was 6.9Mt and 1.9Mt, respectively.

Production of semi-soft metallurgical from Vale’s Integra Coal mine in New South Wales last year was 1.410Mt, while thermal coal was 87,000t. Met coal was prioritised over thermal coal, resulting in lower production of thermal coal during the year.

“In 4Q13, we had operational problems with the longwall cutting mechanism at Integra Coal, which impacted our underground operation,” the company said.

Additionally, adverse weather conditions impacted production from the Integra open pit operations. These two factors affected Integra 2013 and 4Q13 coal production, which included 433,000t of metallurgical and 34,000t of thermal coal.

Production from its other Australian mines was 299,000t in 4Q13, an increase of 39.7% from the 214,000t in 3Q13, due to good operational performance.