Middlemount Coal Mine

This article is part of the Global Coal Mine Tracker, a project of Global Energy Monitor.

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Middlemount Coal Mine is an operating coal mine in Middlemount, Queensland, Australia.

Location

Table 1: Project-level location details

Mine Name	Location	Coordinates (WGS 84)
Middlemount Coal Mine	Middlemount, Queensland, Australia	-22.848131, 148.631626 (exact)

The map below shows the exact location of the coal mine:

Project Details

Table 2: Project status

Status	Status Detail	Opening Year	Closing Year
Operating	–	2011	–

Table 3: Operation details

Note: The asterisk (*) signifies that the value is a GEM estimated figure.

Capacity (Mtpa)	Production (Mtpa)	Year of Production	Mine Type	Mining Method	Mine Size (km2)	Mine Depth (m)	Workforce Size
4	3.958	2025	Surface	Open Pit	28.0	50.0*	492.0*

Table 4: Coal resources and destination

Total Reserves (Mt)	Year of Total Reserves Recorded	Total Resources (Mt)	Coalfield	Coal Type	Coal Grade	Primary Consumer/ Destination
81.0	2024	155.0	Bowen	Bituminous	Met	Terminal (Export)

Table 5: Ownership and parent company

Note: To access more comprehensive data on energy ownership, please visit the Global Energy Ownership Tracker.

Owner	Parent Company	Headquarters
Middlemount Coal Limited	Yancoal Australia Ltd [50.0%]; Peabody Energy Corp [50.0%]	USA, China

Table 6: Historical production (unit: million tonnes per annum)

ROM or Saleable	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
ROM	5.12	5.3	4.46	2.92	4.75	4.27	3.07	–	3.96

Reported Methane Emissions Data

Global Energy Monitor collates facility-scale methane emissions data reported by government and company sources collected in a systematic fashion. This mine is associated with the following methane emissions reports:

Table 7: Methane emissions

Reported Coal Mine Methane Emissions (thousand tonnes CO2 equivalent)	Reported Coal Mine Methane Emissions (thousand tonnes CH4)	Year of Reported Coal Mine Methane Emissions	Reported Coal Mine Methane Emissions (thousand tonnes) Reference	Reference type
4.39	364.337	2024-25	​	national government data

Note: The above sections were automatically generated and are based on data from the Global Coal Mine Tracker May 2026 release.

Ownership Tree

This ownership tree is part of the Global Energy Ownership Tracker, a project of Global Energy Monitor.

Background

Middlemount Mine is a surface coal mine located 6 kilometres south-west of Middlemount in the Bowen Basin in Queensland, Australia. The mine is operated by Middlemount Coal, and is a 50/50 joint venture between Peabody Energy and Yancoal. The Middlemount mine was formerly owned by Macarthur Coal, who completed the purchase of the Middlemount project on 15 January 2008. On its website Macarthur Coal states that coal mining commenced in the bulk sample pit in October 2008 with the mining lease granted in September 2009. The project was scheduled to be commissioned in 2011 and cost $70m to construct. The project employed 160 people during construction and 80 when operating.

Middlemount produces semi-hard coking coal and medium-volatile pulverized coal injection (PCI) coal for the export market. It has contracted rail and port capacity through Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal (DBCT) and North Queensland Export Terminal.

• Operator:Middlemount Coal Limited
• Owners: Peabody Energy (50%), Yancoal (50%)
• Location: 6 kilometers south-west of Middlemount, Queensland, Australia
• GPS Coordinates: -22.848131, 148.631626 (exact)
• Status: Operating
• Production: 3.6 million tonnes per annum (2022)
• Total Resource: 155 million tonnes (2022)
• Mineable Reserves: 88 million tonnes (2022)
• Coal Type: Semi-hard coking coal, Low-volatile pulverized coal injection (PCI) (Thermal & Metallurgical)
• Mine Size:
• Mine Type: Surface, open-cut
• Start Year: 2011
• Source of Financing:

Extension

As of 2022, Peabody and Yancoal have proposed an extension of Middlemount mine which will extend its life of mine until 2044.

In November 2022, the project gained publicity for being one of several projects located in Great Barrier Reef catchments and floodplains that was exempted from needing an environmental impact statement (EIS) by the Queensland government because it is proposed it would produce less than two million tonnes of coal a year. Without an EIS, the public could be excluded from providing comments on the project's terms of reference. This would instead leave the mining company to largely define what issues they address in their environmental assessments.

Coal Mine Boundaries and Methane Sources

Global Energy Monitor researchers have identified coal mine boundary/boundaries and potential sources of coal mine methane (CMM) for this mine. These research results can be used to drive CMM attribution and mitigation efforts, particularly when combined with remotely sensed methane plume locations and mine ownership data. Explore the results with the embedded map at the top of this page by clicking on the mine boundary polygon or the CMM placemarkers to reveal more details. A detailed description of this research can be found in Coal Mine Boundaries and Methane Sources. This data is also available as a downloadable companion dataset to the Global Coal Mine Tracker and the Global Methane Emitters Tracker.

Table SMP1: Coal mine boundaries and methane sources data

ID	Mine feature category	Mine feature subcategory	Description	Coordinates precision	Data source date
M0069.B1	mine boundary	surface	Middlemount mine boundary	extracted	2020-11-01 00:00:00
M0069.P1	other	preparation plant	coal handling and preparation plant	extracted	2024-03-01 00:00:00

Table SMP2: Coal mine boundaries and methane sources data (continued)

Coal mine boundaries and methane sources were last researched for this mine on Jul 09, 2025

ID	Notes
M0069.B1	Section ES.2 PROJECT OVERVIEW on page 3 of the Middlemount Coal Mine Southern Extension Project Environmental Values Assessment from 11/2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20250709141044/https://minedocs.com/24/Middlemount-Extension-EA-112020.pdf, describes the an extension of the mining operations within the existing contiguous mining leases of the mine: ML 70379, ML 70417, ML 700014, ML 700027 and ML 70417. The boundary is comprised of these mining leases. The area of the boundary is approximately 35 sq km. Mining lease geometries were extracted from the Queensland Mining Leases dataset (https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.data.qld.gov.au/dataset/queensland-mining-and-exploration-tenure-series/resource/f87794b8-7b9a-4732-89bb-56ccb2228d27).
M0069.P1	Identified visually from Google Earth Pro satellite imagery.

Methane Plumes Detected Nearby

Global Energy Monitor researchers analyze satellite-detected methane plumes in order to determine whether they have been observed at or near the site of GEM energy assets. The satellite data provider creates imagery of individual methane plumes and estimates their emission rates at the time of observation. GEM has reviewed many of these plume detections against Google Earth imagery and GEM’s own energy infrastructure tracker data. The following table lists methane plumes which are associated with the energy asset or facility based on distance and manual review. (A full description of the analysis process is available in the Global Methane Emitters Tracker methodology wiki page.)

Table M1: Plume details

For additional details on this individual plume identification and others, see the Global Methane Emitters Tracker.

Observation date	Satellite data provider	Location of plume origin	Methane emissions rate	Additional plume information
2024-12-15T00:31:45+00	CarbonMapper, tan20241215t003145c00s4001-D	-22.836, 148.6401	–	Queensland State Methane Observation 2024-12-15, 1

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Additional data

To access additional data, including an interactive map of world coal mines, a downloadable dataset, and summary data, please visit the Global Coal Mine Tracker on the Global Energy Monitor website.