Chapter 11
I The Present Energy Economy
II Australian Energy Consumption
III Research And Development
IV Coal
i Transition at the coal face
ii Further development of face mechanisation
iii Mechanisation outside the face area
iv Open-cut mining in NSW
v Open-cut mining in Queensland
vi Underground mining in Queensland
vii The state of the art
viii Conclusion
V Oil And Natural Gas
VI Solar Energy
VII Nuclear Energy
VIII Bagasse Firewood And Other Biomass
IX Electric Power Generation And Distribution electric Power Generation And Distribution
X Manufactured Gas
XI Industrial Process Heat
Sources
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Open-cut mining in Queensland
There was no open-cut coal in Queensland in 1947 and very little was done until well after it was begun in NSW. It came about by the interest of the Japanese steel mills in obtaining hard coking coal to augment their own coals, which required a hard coal blend to raise the resultant coke to a suitable quality. Exploration resulted in the discovery of hard coking coal near the township of Moura in 1960 by the Theiss Bros., and the export trade could be said to have begun when a shipment of raw coal of an ash content of 7.2 per cent arrived in Fuji Horahata Steelworks in August, 1961.The Utah Construction and Mining Company and State Geological Survey officers became interested in the Bowen Basin and delineated large reserves of accessible open-cut coal. Subsequently the Utah Development Company commenced its first operational mine in March, 1967, at Blackwater. Since then approximately 20 large mines, mostly open-cut, have been established, from which 86.012 million tonnes were mined in 1985-86.
The later beginning of open-cut mining in 1961 resulted in operators in Queensland having access to more advanced equipment than their counterparts in NSW had in 1947, particularly in respect to walking draglines, which now have capacities undreamed of in the early days. The result is that individual mines in Queensland are designed with annual capacities up to 5 million tonnes to obtain the economics of volume production. In addition at least one mine utilises a bucket wheel excavator for overburden removal and one mine utilises a large dragline of 130 cu m bucket capacity and auxiliary equipment is of matched capacity.
Organisations in Australian Science at Work - Fuji Horahata Steelworks; Theiss Bros. Pty Ltd
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Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering |  |
© 1988 Print Edition page 795, Online Edition 2000
Published by Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, using the Web Academic Resource Publisher
http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/765.html