The first batch of coal is due to be processed at the washplant within days from Sojitz Blue’s new Crinum underground operation near Emerald.

Sojitz Blue chief executive officer and managing director Cameron Vorias described the start of production as a momentous occasion and a first-class achievement from a very dedicated workforce at the mine, with Crinum being the company’s first underground venture as owner-operator.

The Japanese company made its first foray into mine operation and management in Queensland at Minerva in 2010 before building the Meteor Downs project in 2017 and purchasing the mothballed Gregory Crinum complex from BMA in 2019.

“The open cut (Gregory) mine went back to work immediately following our purchase and now our Stage 2 plan, the introduction of the underground operation has commenced. It’s been part of our overall pipeline of projects in our mid-term plan and we are all excited with our new venture,” Mr Vorias said.

“So it’s a momentous occasion for us all in Sojitz Blue and the organisation in Tokyo is extremely thrilled to be now the operator of both open-cut and underground mines.”

Sojitz Blue shifted to an owner-operator model at Crinum after terminating a contract with Mastermyne late last year.

The first coal was cut about two weeks ago and final construction work at the site was wrapped up last week with the commissioning of a new radial stacker at Crinum.

Mr Vorias said the operation would be ramping up to a nameplate capacity of about 1.5 Mtpa by April next year.

Sojitz Blue has cranked up the site workforce from 44 in late May to about 77, with recruitment ongoing to lift that to 106 personnel by August.

“With the support from E73, we have been able to steadily grow our underground workforce and we are continuing to find really good people to come and join Crinum,” Mr Vorias said.

The recruitment effort is focused on workers ready to call the Emerald area home.

“We’ve been finding a large number of people wanting to come and live in Emerald with their family and enjoy the benefits of the Central Highlands community. We all believe that there are huge complementary benefits of mixing mining /local enterprise together. This is key to a sustainable mining business, ” Mr Vorias said.

He said about 82 per cent of the workforce across Sojitz Blue’s coal mines were residential in that region.

Crinum holds a mineable resource of more than 10 million tonnes of metallurgical coal.

Looking to the future, Sojitz Blue is going through the approvals process to continue its Gregory open-cut operations through the ‘M-Block’ extension project.

Sitting directly east of the existing mining area, progressing to this area would open up a coal resource of more than 60 million tonnes.