The Stratford Operation is located 95 km from Newcastle in the Gloucester Basin.

Gloucester Coal Ltd (then called CIM Resources Ltd) announced the development of Stratford in November 1994. The mining lease was granted in December 1994 with construction commencing in January 1995. The expected mine life was for 14 years at 1.135 Mtpa. Production commenced in June 1995 with the first coal being dispatched to Newcastle on 5 July 1995 and loaded on 20 July 1995. Total development costs were A$27 million including feasibility investigations, purchase of the asset, and construction. A further A$12 million was spent on expanding output capacity to 2.0 Mtpa, including the fine coal processing plant commissioned in May 1997.

Further Information

• See Plan of Stratford Operation - 112K PDF (Pictured Above)
• See Stratford Geology & Mining Info - 1,221 PDF

The Main Deposit is an open cut mine characterised by high quality coking coal with overburden and relatively low stripping ratios. It was developed during 1995 with the first coal shipment in July 1995. The Main Deposit lay within a north-south trending synclinal structure plunging shallowly to the north and involves a number of seams in the Avon subgroup. The deposit had steeply dipping sides on both the eastern and western limbs and also in the south where the nose of the syncline subcrops. Complex faulting had occurred along the flanks of the deposit, particularly on the eastern side, where low angle thrust faults have caused stacking of seams. The deposit widened to the north with the central, relatively flat part of the syncline widening to about 1 kilometre at a point where an east-west fault of approximately 50 metres throw forms the deposit's northern limit.

Coal production from the Stratford Main Deposit ceased in mid 2003. When in full production the deposit produced 2.7 Mtpa of product coal while utilising 120 employees, at a productivity per man of more than 20,000tpa. The void is now being utilised for Coal Handling and Preparation Plant reject emplacement.

The Bowens Road North ("BRN") deposit is located 1½km north of the Stratford Main Deposit. It contains the Bowens Road seam and a number of minor seams of varying thickness and qualities. Generally the geology of the North Stratford area is characterised by strata dipping in excess of 45° to the west, interbedded with numerous thin coal seams. However, the Bowens Road Seam geology and character is different from the other coal seams. The seam is of substantial thickness and occurs as a relatively flat lying deposit in the BRN pit area.

The Bowens Road seam is a thick interval of domestic quality thermal coal. The seam, generally in excess of 10 metres thick, has previously been extracted from the Bowens Road West pit, an area of steeply dipping strata adjacent to the existing Stratford Coal Handling and Preparation Plant.