New coalmine to provide jobs for Aborigines

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Image credit: MorgueFile

A new coalmine in Cape York will provide job opportunities for hundreds of Aborigines, with a drilling program ready to take off before the summer monsoon season kicks in.

Image credit: MorgueFile
Image credit: MorgueFile

Bounty Mining has entered the Indigenous-backed Wongai project which would see the company open an underground coking coalmine 150 km northwest of Cooktown, according to a report from The Australian.

The company is also said to have raised an $800,000 capital to fund a five-week drilling program at the site.

The new Wongai mine is expected to deliver 1.5 million tons of coking coal  for export trough the Great Barrier Reef each year. The Wongai project was brought about by Cape York Aboriginal leader Gerhardt Pearson in collaboration with the Kalpowar people.

According to Bounty Mining chairman Gary Cochrane, the mine will generate 250 jobs in its construction phase, and further 200 jobs upon its completion.

Adertisement

“From day one, including when we start drilling very soon, we’ll have locals employed.”

“There’ll be a lot more of that in the future. We’ll have job opportunities for mining engineers, underground miners, truck drivers, barging, accountants, a full spectrum,” said Mr. Cochrane

He pointed out that no drilling had been done on the site in the last two decades, and expects that recent activities would allow the company to do more detail planning.

According to him, the company is planning to raise additional capital next year, which will be used for mining equipment and financing the next stage of the Wongai project.

Mr. Cochrane added that apart from the employment, the indigenous population will also benefit from improvement in infrastructure – such as power and water- which can be used to promote ecotourism and farming enterprises.

He also dismissed the concerns that the project would harm the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem

“It’s a boutique-style operation and it’ll have a fairly light footprint on the environment, despite what Greenpeace say,” Mr. Cochrane said.

“The reef is 2500km long and we’re barging through an existing channel that doesn’t need any dredging. It’s nowhere near the scale of what they’re doing in the Bowen Basin (in central Queensland).”

Experts believe that the mining site has the capacity to produce 67.5 million tons of coking coal,  which would be trucked 18km to the coast and shipped to its final destination.