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Roof collapses and halts production at Central Qld coal mine

Cook Colliery
Cook Colliery

An underground resources company was forced to interrupt production when a roof collapsed at its coal mine and infrastructure in Central Queensland on October 17.

Work was interrupted for days after a section of the roof caved in at Bounty Mining’s Cook Colliery, 195km west of Rockhampton.

“Bounty Mining confirms that on 17 October 2019 a minor roof fall in the 203B panel at the company’s partially buried the company’s CM13 continuous miner,” a spokesperson said in a statement to the Australian stock market.

The State Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy’s Inspectorate, who the company claims to have regularly updated, has reviewed the planned process for restarting operations at Panel 203B, which is the only panel being mined at the colliery.

“There were no injuries associated with this incident,” the spokesperson said.

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Full review

While a crew removed and inspected the CM13 continuous miner, a second CM02 continuous miner was temporarily used in another part of Panel 203B. A full review is being conducted on the mining process.

For now Bounty conceded production targets are unlikely to be met for the month.

“October production for the company will be negatively impacted by this event,” the spokesperson said. “The full extent of the impact is still unclear and is being assessed by the company.”

Work restarts

Production finally resumed on October 24, a full week after the roof collapsed, with the CM02 continuous miner operating in Panel 203B.

Repair work is underway on the CM13 continuous miner and is expected to be returned to service. Bounty welcomed the continued production.

“The Bounty team has worked hard to overcome this setback, and we continue to concentrate on safety as we learn from this incident and resume operations,” Bounty CEO Jim Griffin said in a public statement.

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