At the end of 2007 Australia had 56.4 gigatonnes of black coal in situ and 38.9Gt of recoverable black coal.

Inferred resources totalled 97.7Gt in situ and 61.6Gt recoverable while the accessible economic demonstrated resources (AEDR) of black coal totalled 38.8Gt.

Raw black coal mine production for 2007 was 421 million tonnes, according to figures provided by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

Geoscience and the US Geological Survey, through its Mineral Commodity Summaries report, have performed a world estimate reporting 687Gt of black coal, and including saleable coal the joint estimate of total world black coal mine production for 2007 was 5.5Gt.

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As of December 2007 Geoscience reported there were 118 operating black coal mines in Australia, consisting of 74 open cut and 44 underground mines.

Queensland accounted for 56.2% of coal production and New South Wales chalked up 41.3%.

The recoverable EDR for 2007 decreased 1.8% from the previous year, which AIMR 2008 attributed mainly to a significant decrease of Peabody Pacific’s resources and reductions at Mt Arthur, Minerva and New Acland.

Of the 38.9Gt of recoverable EDR, 53% was in Queensland and 42% was in NSW.

Some 8.8Gt was hard coking coal, with 3.6Gt of soft coking coal, 0.95Gt of pulverised coal injection coal and 25.55Gt of thermal coal.

With recoverable inferred resources spiking 3.6% from the end of 2006 to 61.1Gt, Geoscience said there were large increases in inferred resources at Curragh North, Minerva, Minyango, Eagle Downs and Rolleston.

For the first time inferred resources were included from North and South Alpha, Yamala, Rocklands and Narrabri.

The recoverable inferred resources consisted of 12.2Gt of hard coking coal, 1Gt of soft coking coal, 0.15Gt of PCI/thermal coal and 47.75Gt of thermal coal.

Of the AEDR, JORC reserves totalled 12.5Gt, or 30%, with this figure including Geoscience estimates of reserves at some operating mines which have no reported JORC reserves.

The resource life of the JORC reserves is forecast to be 30 years and majors BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Xstrata Coal, Peabody Pacific and Anglo Coal represent about 68% of JORC reserves in the nation, according to the report.

On the coal exploration front, expenditure totalled $192.6 million for 2007, a few million shy of the $198.7 million in 2006.

Coal exploration expenditure only accounted for 9.3% of all mineral exploration in Australia for 2007.

Australia has 6% of the world’s recoverable black coal EDR and ranks sixth behind the US on 31%, Russia 21%, China 13%, India 8% and South Africa 7%.

Australia also produced 6% of global black coal last year and was fourth behind leader China, which accounted for 45%, the US with 18%, and India at 8%.