Shotton team hit million-tonne landmark
Banks Mining extract one million tonnes of coal in company’s 2013/14 financial year
THE 150-strong team at Shotton surface mine in south-east Northumberland have hit a major production milestone. For the first time in Banks Mining’s 38-year history, 1 million tonnes of coal have been extracted from one of their sites within the company’s financial year, which finished at the end of September.
The coal taken from Shotton represents around 8% of the total amount mined annually across the UK, with 13 million tonnes produced from indigenous surface (9 million tonnes) and deep (4 million tonnes) mines in the last year, compared with the 49 million tonnes that were imported.
The coal produced from Shotton in the last year was enough to meet the annual electricity consumption needs of more than 417,000 homes, and the site is scheduled to remain in production until 2018, with full restoration set to be completed during the following year.
Neil Cook, site manager at Shotton since the start of operations, said: ‘There are 150 people working at this site, and every single one of them, from the management and engineers to the plant operators, is very proud of this achievement – to extract that much coal in such a short period has been a tremendous team effort.’
Gavin Styles, executive director at Banks Mining, added: ‘I’m incredibly proud of the achievement made at Shotton by Neil and his team. Everyone involved with Shotton has worked hard over the last year to improve productivity and have also done so in the right way.
‘The efficiency improvements have been underpinned by a continued improvement in our health and safety performance and we have continued to meet and exceed the environmental performance standards we have at Shotton.
‘Managing an operation of this type takes a huge amount of planning and organization, total commitment by everyone involved to the goals we put in place and a constant awareness of how things need to evolve in order to keep everything on track.
‘Our people are obviously the biggest factor in our success, and the investments we’ve made in improving their skills, enhancing communications systems, working with our local suppliers and providing the best available equipment for the job are paying clear dividends.’
