Austral said recent production downtime caused by unusually high concentrations of CO2 associated with a dyke which cuts diagonally across the longwall face was diminishing as the longwall advanced and the dyke moved further to the tailgate side of the longwall face.
The company said the dyke should be completely off the face by the end of this month.
“A major focus in the immediate future will be on training and process control to increase production efficiency and volume,” Austral said.
From September 3-17 the longwall has been making slow progress with longwall advance and production increasing. On the dates September 3 and September 17 Austral has increased longwall advance from 43.6 metres to 53.3 metres and longwall production from 40,984 to 61,921 ROM tonnes.
