Rio Tinto will ramp up production at its Hunter Valley coal mines, to double output by 2015.
Management has outlined future growth for the company’s operations, including plans to capitalise on demand from China and India for thermal coal.
Included in the outlook, are plans to extract eight million tonnes a year at the Mount Pleasant mine near Muswellbrook, by 2015.
The feasibility study is complete and 90 per cent of the land purchased.
Meanwhile a pre-feasibility study for the expansion of Hunter Valley Operations northwest of Singleton will be completed by the end of this year.
Rio says infrastructure bottlenecks at the Port of Newcastle are holding up 10-million tonnes of coal a year, but that’s expected to ease.
text will be replaced
