Tahmoor North and Bargo are extensions of the Bulli coal seam currently being extracted at the Tahmoor underground coalmine, 70km south-east of Sydney, but are potentially of much higher quality and mining efficiency.
Austral says the seam at Tahmoor North and Bargo is much thicker than existing workings - up to 3.5m compared to 1.8m - and both areas can support substantially larger longwall panels than are currently mined.
Tahmoor annually produces over 2 million tonnes of run of mine coal using a 225m wide longwall unit and continuous miner development units. ROM coal is washed on site, recovering about 77% coking coal and 6% thermal coal.
Preliminary studies at Tahmoor North and Bargo indicate the longwall panels would be of world-class dimensions, potentially up to 4km in length and accommodating 300m wide faces containing double the mineable coal compared to existing panels.
Tahmoor North is estimated to have mineable reserves of 25Mt of coal and Bargo 37Mt, taking Tahmoor's total reserves to more than 72Mt of mineable coal.
Austral says the IMC feasibility study will review the considerable geological, geotechnical and coal quality database and recommend an optimum mine plan for future operations.
