Regional Coal: Thiess bags $1.3b mining contract from Peabody

Australia?s leading mining and services firm Thiess Pty Ltd has been awarded a six-year $1.3 billion contract to extend mining operations at Peabody Energy Australia?s Burton Coal Mine in Queensland?s resource rich Bowen Basin.

Thiess has operated the Burton Coal Mine over the past 14 years and this contract will extend the life of the mine until 2016, the company said in statement

Thiess started operations at Burton in 1996 and has mined close to 50 million tonnes of hard coking coal and thermal coal from various pits within the 45 kilometre project site for export to a number of international markets including Asia, Europe, India and South America.

This new contract will allow Thiess to maintain Burton?s annual production capacity of over 2.5 million tonnes of coal per annum, it said.

The Burton Coal Mine extension will employ more than 500 people and will see Thiess mobilise an additional Liebherr R9800 ? one of the world?s largest mining backhoe excavators ? to work in tandem with the first excavator which has been operating at Burton for nine months.

A fleet of Caterpillar 797trucks, the largest in the Cat range, will service the two big excavators, emphasizing the scale of the work. (denny)