{"id":153714,"date":"2025-09-19T05:52:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T05:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/153714\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T05:52:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T05:52:11","slug":"qcoals-cook-colliery-coal-mine-in-central-queensland-to-close-half-of-operation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/153714\/","title":{"rendered":"QCOAL’s Cook Colliery coal mine in central Queensland to close half of operation"},"content":{"rendered":"

A third Queensland coal miner has confirmed job cuts as it prepares to close one of its underground mine sites, with the company also putting the blame on rising costs and state government royalties.<\/p>\n

QCOAL announced on Friday that one of its two underground sites at the Cook Colliery mine, near Blackwater in central Queensland, would shut down in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

The project employs about 170 people and is operated by contractor Core Crew.<\/p>\n

QCOAL said the closure at Cook Colliery would mean redundancies for workers or changes to existing positions, with employees to be consulted over the next two weeks before closure in early October.<\/p>\n

The number of job losses remains unclear but it is understood that about half the workforce may be affected.<\/p>\n

The looming shutdown comes just days after BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) announced the closure of Saraji South mine<\/a> at Dysart and Anglo American confirmed job losses at its Brisbane offices and across its Bowen Basin operations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Isaac Regional Council Mayor Kelly Vea Vea said the BMA and Anglo job cuts would cost about 1,020 jobs in total.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Saraji South mine is to be shut by owners BMA this November. (ABC Rural: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

In a statement, QCOAL said market conditions led to the decision.<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately Cook Colliery has been affected by high production costs, high taxes and royalties, and low coal prices, and its ongoing operation at its current levels is unsustainable,” a company spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

“Cook Colliery has contributed $25 million in royalties to the Queensland government since its March 2022 reopening despite never making a profit.”<\/p>\n

Mining industry says coal royalties ‘wildly’ underestimates revenue<\/a><\/p>\n

The Queensland Resources Council wants the state to scrap its 40 per cent royalty hike on some coal exports, saying the new rates\u00a0put\u00a0the industry’s viability at risk.<\/p>\n

The mine has had a troubled history.<\/p>\n

QCOAL bought the mine from Bounty Mining in 2020 after that company was forced into voluntary administration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

QCOAL reopened the sites in 2022.<\/p>\n

Bounty purchased the site after Cook’s previous owner Caledon Coal Group was also put into liquidation in 2017.<\/p>\n

The mine sits about 27 kilometres south of Blackwater and produces both coking coal for steelmaking and thermal coal for energy.<\/p>\n

The company’s website boasts that almost half of the mine’s workforce comes from the Central Highlands area.<\/p>\n

Industry ‘challenges ripple into regions’<\/p>\n

The federal LNP Member for Flynn, Colin Boyce, said he was extremely disappointed about the job cuts.<\/p>\n

“I advocate that the state government go back to the negotiating table and get all the players in the room and reassess this whole royalties tax regime,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I think that would be a start and a step in the right direction.”<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Colin Boyce said coal royalties need to be reassessed. (AAP: Dominic Giannini)<\/p>\n

Queensland Mining Council chief executive officer Janette Hewson echoed those sentiments.<\/p>\n

“This once again demonstrates that the world’s highest royalty rates coupled with low prices and soaring production costs have impacted the viability of Queensland operations,” she said.<\/p>\n

“This is an industry-wide challenge that is now having a ripple effect in the regions.”<\/p>\n

The state government and Mining and Energy Union been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A third Queensland coal miner has confirmed job cuts as it prepares to close one of its underground…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[62129,64,63,100126,102797,99,102741,102798,45450,62903],"class_list":["post-153714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-anglo-american","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bhp-mitsubishi-alliance","tag-blackwater","tag-business","tag-coal-mine","tag-cook-colliery","tag-job-cuts","tag-qcoal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}