Hunter Valley Operations
- Overview
- Mining and production
- Sustainable development
- Community engagement
- Library
Hunter Valley Operations is committed to sustainable development and ensuring positive environmental, social and economic outcomes for the community in which it operates.
The mine ensures that all employees and visitors comply with Rio Tinto Coal Australia’s environmental management policies to minimise the mine’s impact on the environment and to ensure that mined land is effectively rehabilitated. Hunter Valley Operations also implements a range of environmental management plans and programmes on site.
2008 Sustainable development report
| 2008 | 2007 | |
|---|---|---|
| Employees | 703 males, 44 females, total 747 | 712 males, 41 females, Total 753 |
| Saleable production | 10.8 million tonnes | 10.1 million tonnes |
| Health & safety LTIFR (200,000) | 0.38 | 0.31 |
| Freshwater use (litres per tonne of product coal) | Target 36, 2008 performance 0 | 111 |
| Energy use (gigagoules per tonne of equivalent material moved) |
Target 0.013, 2008 performance 0.015 Hunter Valley Operations slightly exceed its voluntary target for energy use due to mine plan changes, the use of additional heavy vehicles and degree of product processing to meet market demand. These variations all increased the site’s energy usage. |
0.015 |
| Greenhouse gas emissions (kg -CO2 per tonne of equivalent material moved) |
Target 1.40, 2008 performance 1.50 Hunter Valley Operations exceeded its voluntary target for greenhouse gas emissions due to its increased energy use in 2008, as outlined above. |
1.48 |
| Annual rehabilitation & disturbance (hectares) |
Target rehabilitation 102, performance 117 Target disturbance 79, 2008 performance 112 While Hunter Valley Operations improved on its voluntary target for hectares of rehabilitation, it exceeded its target for land disturbance. This was due to changes in mine planning throughout the year, which altered the mine's land management plans. |
Rehabilitation 109 Disturbance 105 |
2008 Highlights
- Hunter Valley Operations took no water from the Hunter River during 2008, helping the mine significantly improve on its target to use 36 litres of freshwater per tonne of product
- Coal & Allied finalised the planting of 80,000 eucalyptus seedlings on land adjacent to Hunter Valley Operations in 2008, in one of the Upper Hunter’s first large-scale commercial forest trials, run with Forests NSW
- Hunter Valley Operations delivered a total of $124.2 million of improvements of which a significant proportion was attributable to optimising semi-soft and thermal export coal
- More than 7000 tonnes of CO2 emissions were avoided through productivity improvements to the draglines
- More than 5000 tonnes of CO2 were saved at Hunter Valley Operations in 2008 by optimising the coal processing plants, including changing old pumps to high efficiency variable speed efficient pumps and consolidating our processing plants
- In 2008, the mine developed a process to reuse waste oil in mine blasting activities. This new process helped save more than 194,000 litres of diesel from June 2008 to the end of the year, which is the equivalent of 512 tonnes of CO2.