Chairman and chief executive officer Michael O’Keeffe said that exploration success and significant mine development over the past quarter had increased in-situ coal resources to 47.5Mt from the 20.1Mt previously reported.

The company purchased the mine in January 2005 with a three-year mine life, which was subsequently raised to 10, and has now reached 17 years at current annual run of-mine (ROM) production of approximately 800,000t.

“We are in the enviable position of not only being able to extend the life of mine through recent exploration work, but we are confident that we will also be able to deliver an improvement in the yield of the coal produced going forward, especially with Deep E Block coming into production earlier than originally planned,” O’Keeffe said.

The company said the new resources identified are within close proximity to the existing processing plant, allowing the colliery to optimise current infrastructure.