Mt Owen Coal Mine

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

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Mt Owen Coal Mine is an operating coal mine in Hebden, New South Wales, Australia.

Location

Table 1: Project-level location details

Mine Name	Location	Coordinates (WGS 84)
Mt Owen Coal Mine	Hebden, New South Wales, Australia	-32.4066392, 151.085603 (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	–	1993	2037 (planned)

Table 3: Operation details

Capacity (Mtpa)	Production (Mtpa)	Year of Production	Mine Type	Mining Method	Mine Size (km2)	Mine Depth (m)	Workforce Size
14	9.2	2024	Surface	Open Pit	–	270.0	616.0

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
69.0	2023	720.0	Hunter	Bituminous	Thermal & 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
Mt Owen Pty Ltd	Glencore PLC [100.0%]	Switzerland

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

ROM or Saleable	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
ROM	8.65	8.82	8.93	8.06	7.78	7.4	7.5	9.2	–

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
1.417	117.587	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

The Mount Owen mine is one of three open cut mines which form the Mt Owen Complex at Hebden in the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales, approximately 25 kilometres northwest of Singleton, and 26 kilometres southeast of Muswellbrook. The other two pits are the Ravensworth East and Glendell open cut coal mines.

Mt Owen mine is owned by Glencore and operated by Thiess, and it produces up to 10 million tonnes of semi-soft coking coal and thermal coal a year. Additionally, a coal handling and processing plant is located on the Mt Owen site, which processes coal from all three mines in the Mt Owen complex. The Mount Owen mine is one of three open cut mines which form the Mt Owen Complex at Hebden in the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales, approximately 25 kilometres northwest of Singleton, and 26 kilometres southeast of Muswellbrook. The other two pits are the Ravensworth East and Glendell open cut coal mines.

Mt Owen mine is owned by Glencore and operated by Thiess, and it produces up to 10 million tonnes of semi-soft coking coal and thermal coal a year. Additionally, a coal handling and processing plant is located on the Mt Owen site, which processes coal from all three mines in the Mt Owen complex.

On its website Xstrata Coal, the previous owner of Mt Owen, states that the "high quality export thermal and semi-soft coking coals (from the Mt Owen Complex) are predominantly exported to South-East Asia for domestic power generation and use in steel production."

Mining began at the Mt Owen mine in particular in 1993, under the management of Hunter Valley Coal Corporation Pty Limited (HVCC). At the time, only 1.4 tonnes of ROM coal could be extracted annually.

In 1997, the Mt Owen mine and Glendell were integrated into the same management system, and in 2004, Ravensworth East was added to the complex. In 2003, Glencore, then known as Xstrata, acquired Mt Owen.

In 2004, Mt Owen was granted a new Development Approval, which extended the life of the mine for 21 years and permitted output to increase to 10 mtpa.

• Operator: Thiess
• Owners: Glencore
• Location: Located within the Hunter Coalfields at Hebden in the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales.
• GPS Coordinates: -32.4066392, 151.085603 (exact)
• Status: Operating
• Production Capacity: 5.2 mtpa (in 2020); 6.9 (in 2021)
• Total Resource: 730 Mt
• Mineable Reserves: 80 Mt
• Coal Type: thermal and semisoft coking coals
• Mine Size:
• Mine Type: open cut
• Start Year: 1993
• Source of Financing:

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
M0077.B1	mine boundary	surface	Mt Owen coal mine	extracted	2023-05-31 00:00:00
M0077.P1	other	preparation plant	coal handling and preparation plant	extracted	2023-05-26 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 16, 2025

ID	Notes
M0077.B1	According to the Mt Owen/Glendell Open Cut website, https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.glencore.com.au/operations-and-projects/coal/current-operations/mt-owen-glendell-open-cut, the Mount Owen mine is part of the Mount Owen complex which includes Mount Owen, Glendell, and East Ravensworth mines. Figure 4 MGO Noise Monitoring locations, page 30, of the Annual Review 2022 Mt Owen / Glendell, https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.glencore.com.au/.rest/api/v1/documents/5be26337fd702c2d67d30e885d615b9f/2022+Annual+review+-+Main+report.pdf, May 31 2023, shows the Mt Owen and Glendell project boundaries. These boudaries match extremely closely the Mt Owen DA SSD-5850 and Glendell DA 80/592 boundaries shown in Figure 4: MOC Noise Monitoring Locations, page 39, of the 2018 Mt Owen Complex annual review, https://web.archive.org/web/20250715191617/https://www.glencore.com.au/.rest/api/v1/documents/8678eb560718fa6e5c05b6694cdb5cf4/ANNUAL-REVIEW-2018-Main-Report-amended-June-2019.pdf, March 31 2019. Note 1: the Ravensworth East mine is part of the Mount Owen complex and within the SSD-5850 boundary as described in the Mount Owen/Glendell 2023 annual report https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.glencore.com.au/.rest/api/v1/documents/34f6615ede78150d537b50a23c2b0259/2023+Annual+Review-+Main+report.pdf, March 28 2024, executive summary on page 5, describing Ravensworth East as part of SSD-5850, the boundary of which is shown in Figure 2: Mt Owen/Glendell Operations Overview and Disturbance as of 31 December on page 16. Note 2: the Glendell mine overlaps the Mt Owen boundary but Glendell mine is not included in this boundary because it is a different GEM mine entity. Note 3: the mining boundary of Integra Underground Mine, Australia, M4354 overlaps the southeastern section of this boundary. The area of the boundary is approximately 52 sq km.
M0077.P1	Identified visually from Google Earth Pro satellite imagery.

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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.