Centennial Coal Pushes Ahead With Capital Projects in Australia

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources Australia (Perth, Australia)--While many companies in the Australian coal sector are announcing project delays and cancellations due to falling coal prices and rising costs, Centennial Coal Company Limited (Sydney, New South Wales), which is now owned by Thai company Banpu Public Company (Bangkok), is moving forward with a number of projects aimed at increasing production from its Springvale mine near Lithgow, in New South Wales.

Centennial Coal already has taken delivery of a new, 251-metre Longwall Mining System, which was supplied by Joy Global Incorporated (NYSE:JOY) (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), with underground installation at the Springvale site expected to commence very soon. Upon completion of the installation, Springvale is expected to begin producing up to 7 million tonnes per year of thermal coal. The coal from Springvale is currently sent either directly to Mt. Piper and Wallerawang power stations or washed and then transported, via overland conveyor and rail, to Port Kembla for export. To allow for the increased production, the existing coal washery will be upgraded and the Lidsdale rail siding will be modernized.

The existing washery currently has the capacity to process approximately 300 tonnes per hour of raw coal. Centennial plans to increase this capacity to approximately 450 tonnes per hour by replacing some of the older equipment with a new dense media circuit. Sedgman Limited (ASX:SDM) (Milton, Queensland), which was appointed to undertake a project definition study, is likely to also be awarded the construction contract for the work. Centennial Coal hopes to have the upgraded facility fully operational by early 2014.

The Lidsdale rail siding currently only has the capacity to load approximately 2 million tonnes per year of coal onto trains headed for Port Kembla, due to its reliance on front-end loaders to load the trains. Centennial Coal plans to upgrade the siding by completely automating the system of transferring the coal from the existing overland conveyor system onto the trains, allowing the facility to increase its train-loading capacity up to approximately 6.3 million tonnes per year. The main construction contract for the project has been awarded to Ellton Conveyors Pty Limited (Gosford, New South Wales), with the entire project expected to take approximately 12 months to complete.

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