Case Study

Case Study
Cast Blasting
Wilkie Creek Mine, Surat Basin, Queensland
Site Profile
Wilkie Creek mine is located in the Surat Basin of
south-east Queensland. Mining commenced in 1994,
with Peabody acquiring the operation in 2005. Current
production rate is 2.3 million tonnes of thermal coal.
The open-cut operation utilises excavators, loaders,
dozers and trucks to mine the coal. Product coal is
then railed 250 kilometres to the Port of Brisbane to be
exported to Japan, Taiwan and Korea for use in the
power generation industry.
Four seams of coal ranging from 1 metre to more than
4.3 metres thick are mined individually. The coal from
each seam is hauled by truck from the pit and
stockpiled individually. The coal then is crushed,
Figure 1: First cast shot area at Wilkie Creek Mine (B21E
sorted and washed.
Block 4)
Wilkie Creek mine has two active pits, namely A and
Technical Solution
B. The blasting activities take place in Pit B in a hard
cap rock band and the fresh mudstone/siltstone ‘greys’ Enabling technologies in this project were:
areas. Only approx 25% of the overburden at Wilkie  SABREX® software- fragmentation/rock
Creek is blasted with the remainder being weak free- displacement modelling tool
diggable material.
 DMC® software- an advanced blast modelling
software to model rock displacement
The Situation  SHOTPlus-i® software- blast design software
The first cast shot at Wilkie Creek was planned in the  Uni tronic™ electronic blasting system
B pit strip 21 East ‘greys’ area (Figure 1) in September
2009. The ‘greys’ are a relatively competent, soft- A few design alternatives were evaluated using DMC®
medium strength fresh mudstone/siltstone rock mass model and the optimum design was implemented
that exists between the base of weathering and the top using SHOTPlus-i ® design software. Pre-blast survey
of coal. (face points, crest, toe), top of coal and drill surface
points were imported to the software. The design
The mine wanted to cast as much as possible to the parameters (drill pattern, stand-off distance, loading
void and achieve relatively high dozing productivity to parameters) determined by blasting models
uncover the coal efficiently in order to meet CHPP (SABREX® and DMC®) were used in this software.
washing requirements.
Front row holes were positioned according to the
surveyed face profile. Average face angle was found
as 58.2±4.7. Face angle was found to be quite shallow
and varying between 50 and 66 degrees. The drilling
contractor with 165mm drills was able to drill at a
maximum of 10 degrees. Due to drill and face angle
constraints, heavy burdens were observed which are
expected to limit the cast results.
Page 1 | © Copyright Orica Limited Group

www.oricaminingservices.com | Document reference: 100053
Case Study
Cast Blasting
Wilkie Creek Mine, Surat Basin, Queensland
A blast with 259 holes was designed at a powder The cast analysis based on post-blast survey data
factor of 0.40 kg/m3. Blast volume was approximately showed that average cast was 11.1% which is slightly
162,000 bcm. All holes were designed at 10 degrees. higher than the value predicted by DMC (8.3%).
The Uni tronicTM electronic blasting system was used Furthermore, the center of prime block has moved to
to achieve effective cast timings that could not be 11.1m.
implemented using standard non-electric delays
Subsequent DMC® simulations were carried out, and
The blast was simulated using the DMC model and the as a result, the following recommendations have been
cast was predicted as 8.3% (Figure 2). made:
 As it was shown that the higher the face angle the
more the cast is, 70 degree face angle is
suggested for the future highwall designs.
 As the higher the drill angle the more the cast is, it
is recommended to increase the drilling angle to
20 degrees.
 Larger diameter (229mm) is better suited for cast
blasting for improved cast and cost.
Figure 2: Simulation of B21E Block4 using DMC Model Cost analysis showed that designs with larger
diameter blast holes lead to reduced mining cost and
faster coal uncovery rate.
The Result
The overall result of the first cast shot was excellent
nd
The cast shot was fired on the 2 of September 2009 and Peabody Wilkie Creek Mine is continuing to see
with visually good results. The fragmentation appeared benefits of this project.
to be good and dozers working reasonably well .
Acknowledgements
Orica Australia Pty Ltd thanks all involved for their
assistance during this work. In particular, Wilkie Creek
personnel are acknowledged for their co-operation.
Thanks go to Sri Lloyd for reviewing the article.
Figure 3: Dozers at B21E Block 4 cast shot
Dozing productivity hasn’t been quantified on-site but

operators are feeling much easier push and the
muckpile profile is more suited to the dozing.
Page 2 | © Copyright Orica Limited Group

www.oricaminingservices.com | Document reference: 100053

Case Study - Cast Blasting With Unitronic 500 EBS Wilkie Creek - English

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Figure 3: Dozers at B21E Block 4 cast shot

Dozing productivity hasn’t been quantified on-site but

Page 2 | © Copyright Orica Limited Group

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