A loader filling up the hauler (took about 8 bucket loads to fill)

Peak Downs is owned and operated by BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance and has a production capacity of 8 million tonnes of coking coal per year. The mine has been running since 1972. You may recall me writing about Andy and I visiting the open cut mine at Dysart back in August last year, which uses the same methods as Peak Downs to extract coal.
At Peak Downs coal is mined by open cut mining methods:

- The vegetation and topsoil is cleared
- Blast holes are drilled in a 10 metre pattern into the rock that is covering the coal and up to 30 tonnes of explosive is loaded into the holes and detonated.
- Six draglines and tow truck/shovel stripping fleets are used for the overburden removal.
- The coal seams are then mined using front-end loaders and 240 tonne capacity coal haulers.
- The coal is then deposited into a 1000 tonne hopper ready to be sized, sorted and washed by the coal preparation plant. Coal is fed into the prep plant at an average of 2000 tonnes per hour!
- The coal is blended to customer requirements before being loaded onto a coal train consisting of 120 wagons capable of carrying about 10000 tonnes of coal, requiring 5 locomotives to pull it the 200km to the coast near Mackay.