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The 1.3Mt gain partly came from Oaky No. 1’s full year of operation, with production suspended from the longwall mine for about eight months of 2009.
The nearby Oaky North mine was the Australian longwall production leader for the last financial year, producing 9.69Mt run-of-mine.
However, Xstrata’s total 2010 coal production fell 6% from the previous year to 79.9Mt.
While Australian semi-soft coking coal was up 6% to 6.6Mt, thermal coal production fell 9% to 65.6Mt.
Thermal output fell due to the closure of the United longwall mine in the 2010 March quarter along with the impact of wet weather on Xstrata’s Queensland open cut mines, which struck early in the year and again in December.
The planned closure of the Southstock open cut mine, plus high rainfall in the Witbank region, hit the company’s South African thermal production, which slumped 15% to 74.4Mt in 2010.
The ramp-up phase of the new Impuzi surface mine also reduced volumes, but the ramp-up of the Goedgevonden mine is on track to hit 7Mtpa capacity in 2011.
Xstrata’s one-third share of thermal coal production from the giant Cerrejon mine in Colombia was 10.1Mt in 2010, just 100,000t lower than the previous year despite some extreme weather conditions.
The company divested ownership of the Prodeco mine in the country to its major stakeholder Glencore International in March last year, and excluded the mine’s output from its annual production report.
