Rix’s Creek uses a 305 Marion dragline, Hitachi 3600 excavator and 240t rear dump trucks as the major equipment to remove overburden. 

The mining technique is a multi-seam bench system which mines up to nine seams and splits.  The coal operation also utilises a range of dozers, Cat 994 front end loaders and rear dump trucks that deliver the run-of-mine coal to the on-site washery. Rix’s Creek is one of the few mining operations in the world to use draglines to load trucks directly. 

Coal Preparation

Raw coal is processed through a 500 tonnes per hour washery.  The coarse coal (50mm x 1.25mm) is processed by dense media cyclones.  Spirals and a Jameson cell treat the fine coal.

The product coal is transported approximately 2 km across the mine site by trucks to the stockpile at the train loader.  It is reclaimed by tunnel and conveyor and fed directly to the trains through a 1600 tonne overhead bin.