The event occurred June 28 at about 3.15pm local time. All Teck employees as well as visitors and contractors were accounted for, and no one was injured.

Teck said Friday that engineers and officials from the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources had performed a preliminary site assessment of the dryer building.

“Although it is still expected to be several days before the damage can be fully assessed and the extent of the interruption of production at Greenhills can be estimated, initial indications are that structural damage to the dryer building is minimal,” the company said.

For now, the mine’s raw coal is being hauled to the neighboring Fording River mine for processing at that complex’s facilities.

Teck is working on further plans to reduce production impact as it carries out repairs at Greenhills.

The producer has insurance to cover both property and business interruptions. That coverage is expected to be sufficient to cover the incident’s foreseeable losses.

Teck has an 80% interest in the mine; its 20% joint venture partners are POSCO Canada and its parent company.

The 2010 production budget for Greenhills is 4.3 million tons of met product, with Teck’s share totaling about 3.4Mt.

Greenhills is located just north of Elkford and is made up of 11,806 hectares of coal lands (2265h mines or planned for mining).