Vickery coal mine

The Vickery coal mine was operated as an open cut mine between 1991 and 1996 and produced approximately 6 million tonnes of thermal coal. The mine is located approximately 18 kilometres southeast of Boggabri and 25km north of Gunnedah in New South Wales.

The mine was operated by Coal & Allied, which is 75% owned by Rio Tinto Coal Australia. After the closure of the mine, Coal & Allied retained ownership of the project. In November 2009 Coal & Allied entered into an agreement to sell the mine to Whitehaven Coal Mining Limited for $31.5million in cash along with a further 1,156 hectares of land in the Gunnedah region.

Whitehaven Coal stated that the deal comprised "Authorisation 406 (A406) and Coal Lease 316 (CL316)", "approximately 3,450 ha of associated land" and "399 megalitres per year of water licences."

Whitehaven's plans
In the media release announcing the purchase, Whitehaven stated that it hold "several tenements adjacent to CL316 and until recently produced export coal from its Canyon Mine which is located immediately to the north of Vickery. Whitehaven also holds EL4699 which is located northwest of Vickery and the company’s Rocglen Mine is immediately to the east."

The company stated that "in near term, Whitehaven intends to focus on the exploration and definition of an open cut area called East Bluevale that is contiguous to Whitehaven’s West Bluevale open cut area which contains approximately 4.95 million tonnes of measured, indicated and inferred resources" and stated that three of the nine deep coal seams "are believed to have economic potential" and "expected to be amenable to underground mining methods. The quality of these coal seams ranges from low ash, high energy thermal coal to high volatile soft coking coal."

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