TerraCom says its Blair Athol coal operation is working towards meeting sales guidance of about 1.6Mt for the full year ending June 30 after toughing out weather challenges last quarter.

The company revised down its 2024/25 forecast for Blair Athol, near Clermont in Central Queensland, from 1.8Mt early last month after the region was hit with 1.5 times the 10-year rainfall average for the March quarter.

The Central Queensland site achieved ROM production of 428kt and coal sales of 321kt in the March quarter. This compared to 476kt and 315kt in the same period last year.

Severe and persistent wet weather conditions affected both production and logistics for the operation, TerraCom managing director Danny McCarthy said.

From January to March, rain was recorded on more than one third of the 90 operating days at Blair Athol, with additional days affected by wet weather impacts and recovery efforts following each event.

“Despite these obstacles, our team showed remarkable resilience and agility, sustaining strong operational momentum on days not affected by rainfall,” Mr McCarthy said.

“The recent commissioning of the Hitachi EX3600-7 excavator has already exceeded productivity expectations, bolstering our confidence in our mine plan for the June quarter.

“Whilst full-year sales guidance is expected to be approximately 1.6Mt, our free-on-board operating costs remain relatively unchanged on an overall basis.

“Looking ahead, we have progressed discussions with Wintime to finalise the documents for the Moorlands thermal coal project.

“We will inform shareholders of the commercial aspects of the project once available, with no changes anticipated to the plan of having first coal from the operation in 2026.”

TerraCom has entered a partnership with China’s Wintime Energy Group to develop and operate the Moorlands thermal coal project, 25km north-west of Clermont.

Moorlands is initially proposed as a 1.9Mtpa run-of-mine (ROM) operation with a 25-year mine life and expansion potential to 4Mtpa ROM.

It is located about 14km north-west of the Blair Athol thermal coal mine, allowing TerraCom to draw on that infrastructure.

You may also like: