Ian Livingstone-Blevins will run the Wilpinjong mine in New South Wales and replaces Keith Downham, who will now have responsibility for identifying and evaluating acquisitions, joint ventures and additional development opportunities in Indonesia for Peabody, as reported exclusively in ILN.
In another key appointment for Peabody, Gerry Brophy will direct and manage its Australian project management teams, reflecting the growing importance of the Asia-Pacific region to the company.
Livingstone-Blevins’ 30 years of mining and operations experience includes head of operations services for Anglo Coal Australia and overseeing underground and open-cut technical services, asset planning, business improvement and geology. Prior to this, he held management roles of increasing responsibility at a number of Anglo operations.
He earned a Higher National Diploma in coal mining from Technikon Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and a Bachelor of Technology degree in mining engineering from the University of Johannesburg.
Livingstone-Blevins will report to Rob Hammond, senior vice president – operations open cut, Australia.
Gerry Brophy will direct and manage Peabody's Australian project management teams with responsibility for the engineering and construction of new mining operations.
He will report to group executive – project development Kemal Williamson.
Brophy brings more than 35 years of experience across project, operations and engineering management in mining and heavy industry.
Most recently, Brophy served as general manager – project development for the Wiggins Island Coal Export Terminal project at the Port of Gladstone in Queensland, a $2 billion project to expand long-term export capacity.
Prior to this he held roles of group head of projects and engineering and head of growth and strategy for global miner Anglo Coal Australia as well as engineering manager for the BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance.
His previous experience includes project management and engineering roles with Hatch Associates, Fluor Daniel and Swan Wooster Fawbert. He earned his Management of Business Diploma from the University of Pretoria in South Africa and a Bachelor of Science honors degree in mechanical engineering from Queens University in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Peabody is advancing multiple organic growth projects across Queensland and New South Wales and continues to target 35 million to 40 million tons per year of sales by 2014 to 2015.
It expects to mine an extra 3.9 million tons (3.54 million tonnes) of hard coking coal from its North Goonyella longwall operation in Queensland after securing a longwall top coal caving technology licence from Yanzhou.
Peabody will work with Yanzhou to ensure the mine's workforce is fully trained and equipped to begin longwall top coal caving (LTCC) operations in the first quarter of 2013. The equipment is expected to be placed into service in late 2012
LTCC technology improves the recoverability of coal over traditional longwall mining methods and will allow the operation to mine the full coal seam thickness of 6.5 metres versus 4.2m with conventional longwall mining.
Peabody has undertaken to train and up-skill its workforce over the next 12 months, with Yankuang Technology Development’s Australian subsidiary Yancoal Australia providing the LTCC technology and expertise.
Yancoal will also support Peabody Energy by providing experienced management and mining staff during extraction of North Goonyella’s longwalls 8, 9 and 10.
