Integra, formerly owned by the Brazilian miner Vale, was placed in care and maintenance in mid-2014 at the height of the local mining downturn.

At the time Vale closed both its underground (known then as Glennies Creek) and open cut mine (Camberwell) with the resultant loss of 500 jobs.

Glencore bought the underground mine in August 2015 and announced in November last year that given higher coal prices they would be re-opening the mine.

At the time Glencore expected to have coal leaving the mine mid-year but obviously the company is ahead of that schedule.

Last Thursday night Glencore recorded a milestone at Integra with first coal produced by development crews.

The mine is on schedule to it’s deliver first coal from the longwall in Q2 and continues to build workforce numbers, with 134 staff and mineworkers now on site.

The restart involves mining one longwall block already formed and completing a second longwall block that had been partially developed by the former owners.

Integra is expected to produce 1.3million tonnes of high fluidity saleable coking coal for 2017.

Operations Manager Peter Ostermann said a drilling program across the mine lease to look at longer term options for Integra is progressing.

When Glencore annouced the reopening it said they were recruiting of up to 275 people through Delta SBD.

The positions would include 122 operator and trades positions, the vast majority experienced black coal operators from local areas.

When Glencore bought the underground mine Vale’s Camberwell open cut was purchased by the Bloomfield Group.

And like Glencore they have reopened the mine and reemployed some of its former staff.

The mine is now called Rix’s Creek North. Semi-soft coking coal and thermal coal exports from the site are underway to Japan and Taiwan.

The Bloomfield Group Chairman John Richards said last year that acquiring the neighbouring mine to our existing Rix’s Creek open cut helps cement the future of our mining operations near Singleton.