PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Hunter Valley-focused Bloomfield Group has employed nearly 100 additional staff at its recently acquired Rix’s Creek North operation, as activities at the mine pick up.
The Bloomfield Group in August last year acquired the Camberwell opencut mine from the Australian arm of major Vale, as part of a deal with Glencore over the Integra coal mine complex.
The Integra complex also included the Glennies Creek underground mine, which Glencore acquired.
The Camberwell mine, now renamed the Rix’s Ceek North operation, was placed on care and maintenance in 2014, but has a capacity of 3.6-million tonnes a year of thermal and semi-soft coking coal, which is railed to the Port of Newcastle.
The operation runs as a bolt-on to Bloomfield Group’s existing Rix’s Creek business, which is adjacent to the south, where the group is currently producing at a rate of 2.8-million tonnes a year.
The Bloomfield Group said on Friday that semi-soft coking coal and thermal coal exports from Rix’s Creek North were currently under way to Japan and Taiwan, and exports were expected to continue at a "modest" rate over the next 12 months.