Ahmedabad, 11th August, 2009 - The Australian subsidiary of Gujarat NRE Coke Ltd, Gujarat NRE Minerals Ltd yesterday announced that it is in the final stages of commissioning of its longwall at its Wongawilli hard coking coal mine near Wollongong in New South Wales. Longwall mining is a form of underground coal mining where a long wall of coal is mined in a single slice to increase the productivity of coal mining. The longwall panel (the block of coal that is being mined) is typically 100 - 350 m wide.
As a result raw coal production at NRE Wongawilli mine will be expanded to approximately to 1,500,000 tonnes per year, up from 179,000 MT during the year 2008-09.
Gujarat NRE Minerals Limited Chairman, Mr Arun Kumar Jagatramka, said the opening of the longwall was excellent timing, with an expected strong increase in demand for Australian hard coking coal, especially from the Indian market.
“The commencement of longwall mining at Wongawilli Mine is a major achievement for Gujarat NRE Minerals and reflects the high quality of our management team and the commitment we have to executing on our company’s vision.”
The longwall mining equipment which last operated in March 2007 has been successfully refurbished with a full overhaul and re-installed at the new longwall face. Gujarat NRE Minerals bought the Elouera mine from BHP Billiton in December 21, 2007, with the company resuming coal production in May 2008.
“It demonstrates our ability to maximise the potential of a mine and achieve significantly increased production targets” said Mr Jagatramka
Addressing specifically to the shareholders of Rey Resources, the Australian company that the Indian miner has made a bid to takeover, Mr Jagatramka said, “The proven expertise and ability of Gujarat NRE’s management team is what the company can offer Rey shareholders in their early-stage Canning Basin coal project.”
Gujarat NRE Minerals also operates NRE No.1 coal mine (NRE No.1 Colliery) in New South Wales with raw coal production of 670,000 MT in the 2008/09 financial year. Longwall mining is also due to be introduced at NRE No.1 mine in 2012 with coal production expected to be increased to 3,000,000 MT per year. NRE No1 mine contains 300 million tones of hard coking coal resources.
Gujarat NRE Coke Ltd is India’s largest independent producer of Low Ash Metallurgical Coke (LAMC) with a track record of regularly rewarding its investors with dividends and bonus. Further, the company has also plans to set up a Greenfield coke plant in Andhra Pradesh and further brownfield expansions at Gujarat and Karnataka thereby taking the total coke making capacity to about 4 million tones over next 3-5 years. Besides, the company already has 87.5 MW of wind power plants operational in Gujarat, and is setting up 60 MW of waste heat recovery co-generation power plants, which is expected to be operational by 2010.
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