The Glennies Creek underground operation, 12km north of Singleton in the Hunter Valley, is 85% owned by AMCI with major steel producers each holding 5% of the rest.

The latest plans, lodged with the NSW Department of Planning, outline opencut mining over 90 hectares of land within which three principle coal seams have been identified: the Middle/Lower Liddell, Barrett and Hebden.

The company said that collectively, between approximately 4m and 9.5m coal was present within the proposed opencut.

Over the life of mine about 7.7 million tonnes ROM coal would be produced at an average stripping ratio of 5.2 bank cubic metres overburden to yield approximately 4.7Mt medium ash, high energy thermal coal and high quality, low sulphur coking coal. Production would be a maximum of 1.5 million tonnes a year over five to six years.

An initial boxcut would be established to launch mining activities utilising dump trucks and excavators with blasting.

The Glennies Creek longwall mine produced 2.5 million tonnes of coal in 2005.