Ashton Coal Mine

The Ashton Underground and Open-Cut coal operations are located approximately 12 km north-west of Singleton in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales. The Ashton mines are adjacent to the Open-Cut mines of Glendell (Xstrata), Camberwell (Vale), Lemington (Rio Tinto), Ravensworth (Xstrata), and Narama (Xstrata). Adjacent Underground mines include Glennies Creek (Vale) and Newpac (Xstrata).

 

 

Felix Resources acquired the interest in the Ashton Open-Cut and underground projects effective from January 2005. Shortly after, a 30 percent stake was sold to the Singapore based International Marine Corporation Group (IMC) in August 2005.

 

The Ashton Coal operation is an unincorporated joint-venture between Felix Resources (60%), International Marine Corporation Group (30%), and Itochu Corporation of Japan (10%) Felix is the operator of these mines.

 

 

The Ashton Open-Cut and Underground coal mines have a current production capacity of approximately 3.9 mtpa of high quality soft coking coal. This coal is predominantly exported to Asian steelmakers.  Due to restrictions in the Newcastle Port (PWCS) a capacity balancing system (CBS) has been introduced, which will limit all shippers output.

The total port capacity for calendar 2009 is set at 102 million tonnes of which Ashtons' share is approximately 3.2 million tonnes. This CBS is likely to continue for 2009 and possibly 2010. Production at Ashton has been designed to match our export allocation.

 

 

2002 - Ashton Coal received development consent

2003 - Construction works began

2004 - Open-Cut operations commenced

2005 - Development works in Underground began

2007 - Ahston Longwall started operation

 

Ashton Coal is an owned and operated site. To date major projects have included the expansion of the Coal Handling and Preparation Plant (CHPP) and the Ravensworth Void 4 tailings dam. The expansion of the CHPP allowed Ashton to handle the increase in Run of Mine (ROM) coal that was to be produced following start up of the Underground mine. This increased the capacity of the plant from 400 tonnes/hour to 1000 tonnes/hour. The tailings dam allows storage of tailings produced from the CHPP. The Underground has a mine life of 18 years finishing up in 2024 whilst an intensive exploration program is underway in the Open-Cut to expand the existing Open-Cut resource, which currently stands at approximately 30 million tonnes.