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By HARRY CLARKE
OPERATORS of the controversial New Acland Coal Mine hope to reach a new workforce peak of about 600 when the project comes back online following the long awaited approval of its mining lease expansion.
New Hope Group has opened an online “expressions of interest” portal on the company website to begin what it expects to be a months long process of mass recruiting enough workers to rebuild and operate the mine outside Oakey.
Queensland Resources Minister Scott Stewart last month approved a mining lease for New Hope’s major Stage 3 expansion at Acland, giving the mine up to an extra 25 years of life.
“The news a couple of weeks ago was really exciting,” New Acland Mine general manager Dave O’Dwyer told a press conference in Toowoomba today.
“The water licence is the last key approval that we need to get going out at Acland and start on the Stage 3 expansion.
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“We’ve been working with the department for a long time on that, a lot of data has been produced, there’s been a lot of modelling done that’s been peer reviewed by numerous parties and the department themselves.
“We’re quite confident that the licence will be forthcoming and we’re working with the minister’s department at the moment to make sure that happens.
“In the meantime we’re going to kick off expressions of interest for jobs and for potential suppliers for the New Acland Mine and the associated capital works that will be going on with the expansion.
“There’ll be all sorts of jobs. We’re looking for everything. We currently have 20 people out on site in the care and maintenance crew and we need to rebuild an extra workforce.
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“There’ll be operators, maintainers, engineers, geologists, admin staff, safety professionals, so all sorts of jobs.”
O’Dwyer said that while the new mining lease allowed New Hope 25 years mine the Stage 3 tenement area, it was expected there was coal supply for another 10 to 15 years of operation.
“The approvals that we have allow us to go a larger operation, which would be 400 employees. There’s a lot of work to do during constructions so that would see a workforce of around 600 people during construction,” he said.
Toowoomba and Surat Basin Enterprise CEO Ali Davenport added: “Hopefully we get this associated water licence, which will mean that Oakey has a huge new lease on life for their workforce”.