The Coppabella Coal Mine is an open-cut

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

mine located in

Strathfield Strathfield is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located 12 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre of the Municipality of Strathfield. A ...

Isaac Region The Isaac Region is a local government area located in Central Queensland, Queensland, Australia created in March 2008 as a result of the report of the Local Government Reform Commission released in July 2007. History Yagalingu is an Australia ...

Central Queensland Central Queensland is an ambiguous geographical division of Queensland ( a state in Australia) that centres on the eastern coast, around the Tropic of Capricorn. Its major regional centre is Rockhampton. The region extends from the Capricorn Coas ...

, Australia. It lies in the eastern part of the

Bowen Basin The Bowen Basin contains the largest coal reserves in Australia. This major coal-producing region contains one of the world's largest deposits of bituminous coal. The Basin contains much of the known Permian coal resources in Queensland includ ...

near the towns of Nebo and

Moranbah Moranbah is a coal mining town and locality in the Isaac Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Moranbah had a population of 8,735 people. In addition to the permanent population, Moranbah also has a large fly-in fly-out popula ...

. The coal is dated to the

Late Permian Late may refer to: * LATE, an acronym which could stand for: ** Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, a proposed form of dementia ** Local-authority trading enterprise, a New Zealand business law ** Local average treatment effect, ...

age and are located within the Rangal Coal Measures. The mine has coal reserves amounting to 227 million tonnes of

coking coal Metallurgical coal or coking coal is a grade of coal that can be used to produce good-quality coke. Coke is an essential fuel and reactant in the blast furnace process for primary steelmaking. The demand for metallurgical coal is highly coupled ...

, one of the largest coal reserves supplying

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

and the world. The mine has an annual production capacity of 4.2 million tonnes of coal. The average

seam Seam may refer to: Science and technology * Seam (geology), a stratum of coal or mineral that is economically viable; a bed or a distinct layer of vein of rock in other layers of rock * Seam (metallurgy), a metalworking process the joins the ends ...

thickness of about ten metres. The mine is jointly owned by

Peabody Energy Peabody Energy is a coal mining and energy company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Its primary business consists of the mining, sale, and distribution of coal, which is purchased for use in electricity generation and steelmaking. Peabody ...

, CITIC Resources,

Marubeni (, OSE: 8002, NSE: 8002) is a ''sōgō shōsha'' (general trading company) headquartered in Nihonbashi, Chuo, Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the largest ''sogo shosha'' and has leading market shares in cereal and paper pulp trading as well as a st ...

Sojitz is a ''sogo shosha'' (general trading company) based in Tokyo, Japan. It is engaged in a wide range of businesses globally, including buying, selling, importing, and exporting goods, manufacturing and selling products, providing services, and pl ...

Nippon Steel was formed in 2012 by the merger of the old Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal. was established in 1970 by the merger of Fuji Iron & Steel and Yawata Iron & Steel. Nippon Steel is the world's third largest steel producer by volume as of 2019. ...

and others. Mining is conducted by

dragline A dragline excavator is a piece of heavy equipment used in civil engineering and surface mining. Draglines fall into two broad categories: those that are based on standard, lifting cranes, and the heavy units which have to be built on-site. Mo ...

and pre-strip operation. Operations began on 1 June 1998. 850 tonnes of coal per hour is able to be washed at the coal handling and preparation plant. There are four pits in operation; Johnson, South, Creek and East Pits. Coal exports leave the country via the

Goonyella railway line The Goonyella railway system is located in Central Queensland, Australia. It services the coal mining area of the Bowen Basin, carrying coal to the Hay Point and Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminals 20 km southeast of Mackay, as well as products t ...

and the Dalrymple Bay Coal terminal at

Hay Point Hay is grass, legumes, or other herbaceous plants that have been cut and dried to be stored for use as animal fodder, either for large grazing animals raised as livestock, such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep, or for smaller domesticated ...

. Coppabella was one of numerous Queensland mines closed during the

2010–11 Queensland floods 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coppabella Coal Mine Coal mines in Queensland Mines in Central Queensland 1988 establishments in Australia Marubeni Sojitz Surface mines in Australia Peabody Energy Nippon Steel

See also

References