The Middlemount mine tragedy has resulted in a ‘hit’ to Peabody’s earnings with the coal giant announcing last night that following the highwall failure and fatality in late June, it expected that Peabody’s share of the joint venture would be $30 million to $35 million lower than second-quarter earnings.
It says that a significant delay in resuming and then ramping up production at the independently operated Middlemount joint venture mine in Queensland affected performance.
It said that Middlemount Coal restarted operations in August in a new area of the mine, with shipments resuming recently.
Peabody and Yancoal (who jointly own the mine) remained silent following the death of Mackay father and grandfather, David Routledge.
David was operating an excavator when an adjacent pit wall approximately 40 metres high suddenly failed. This resulted in the excavator engulfed by material from the wall and partially crushing the excavator’s cabin.
The Queensland Department of Natural Resource, Mines & Energy released an alert on pit wall failures following the tragic accident.
The Middlemount mine Joint Venture between Peabody Energy and Yancoal produces low volatile pulverised coal injection (PCI) coal and hard coking coal, with contracted rail and port capacity through Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal and Abbot Point Port.
Middlemount mine is an open cut mine located 90 km northeast of Emerald in Queensland’s Bowen Basin. Full-scale operations at the open-cut mine commenced in November 2011, with mining activities using conventional truck and shovel techniques.
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