UK’s first coal mine in 30 years faces climate court test
Environmental campaigners are challenging the approval of a coking coal mine in northwest England.
Miner and commodities trader Glencore (LON:GLEN) is cutting 430 jobs, or about 30 percent of the workforce at its Hail Creek coal mine in Queensland, Australia, following a 100-day review that began after it bought the asset from Rio Tinto.
Under the “reconfiguration” of Hail Creek, the two-dragline operation would become a truck-and-shovel mine with a seven-day-on, seven-day-off roster, meaning that employees at the mine would work seven days and take the next seven days off.
The Swiss company also said the majority of the changes will take in place by the second quarter of 2019.
Glencore is already the world’s No.1 exporter of thermal coal used for power stations, and Hail Creek — which was one of Rio Tinto’s last two remaining coal assets — gave it a bigger stake in metallurgical coal used in the making of steel.
In 2017, the mine produced about 9.4 million tonnes of coal, 5.25 million tonnes of which were coking coal and 4.13 thermal.
Comments
FIFO68
Must be pretty bloated to begin with