Mt Thorley Warkworth Coal Mine

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Mt Thorley Warkworth Coal Mine is an operating coal mine in Singleton, New South Wales, Australia.

Location

Table 1: Project-level location details

Mine Name	Location	Coordinates (WGS 84)
Mt Thorley Warkworth Coal Mine	Singleton, New South Wales, Australia	-32.60700995, 151.0901636 (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	–	1981	2037 (planned)

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
28	17.2	2024	Surface	Open Pit	–	60.0*	1444.0

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
229.0	2024	–	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
Coal & Allied	Yancoal Australia Ltd [100.0%]	China, South Korea, Japan, Japan

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

ROM or Saleable	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
ROM	–	17.6	17.6	17.6	16.5	12.4	17.2	17.2	–

Expansion/Extension

Table 7: Project status

* Added capacity of a coal mine refers to the enhancement in the mine's production capabilities beyond its initial production capacity.

Status	Status Detail	Project Type	Project Phase	Added Capacity (Mtpa)*	Start Year
Proposed	Construction	Expansion	–	4	–

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 8: 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
–	–	–	​	–
25.168	2088.971	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 Thorley Warkworth mine (also known as MTW) is an integrated coal mining operation comprised of two adjacent open-cut mines: the Mount Thorley and Warkworth sites. Each of these mines are owned by separate joint ventures.

Additionally, Yancoal, the primary owner of each mine, as well as the operator, is exploring underground mining at the Mt Thorley Warkworth. This has not yet begun but is expected to produce 6 mtpa once it does. Coal mining operations began at both Mt Thorley and Warkworth in 1981. Each has continuously produced semi-soft coking coal and thermal coal for domestic and export markets since they opened in the 80s. The two mines were integrated into one operation in February 2004 to form Mount Thorley Warkworth.

In 2017, Yancoal officially bought all of Rio Tinto’s coal assets in New South Wales, which included Mt Thorley Warkworth. As of 2017, 28 million tonnes of Run Of Mine coal from Mt Thorley Warkworth is permitted in a calendar year, with 18 million from Warkworth and 10 million from Mt Thorley. In 2017, Warkworth produced 14 million tonnes and Mt Thorley produced about 4, adding up to 18 million tonnes of ROM coal. This was pared down to about 12 million tonnes of saleable coal in 2017.

• Operator: Coal & Allied
• Owners (Mount Thorley): Yancoal (80%), POSCO (20%)
• Owners (Warkworth): Yancoal Australia (84.5%), Nippon Steel (9.5%), Mitsubishi Materials (6%)
• Location: Located 15 kilometres south-west of Singleton in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales.
• GPS Coordinates: -32.60700995, 151.0901636 (exact)
• Status: Open cut is operating while underground is not yet
• Capacity: open cut - 12 mtpa, underground - 6 mtpa
• Production: 11.2 million tonnes (2021)
• Total Resource: 613 million tonnes (as of 2015)
• Mineable Reserves: 315 million tonnes (as of 2018)
• Coal Type: semi-soft coking and thermal coal
• Mine Size:
• Mine Type: underground, open cut
• Start Year: Open cut mining began in 1981
• Source of Financing:

two open cut mines located adjacent to each other, 15 kilometres south-west of Singleton in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales.

Opposition (Mt Thorley Warkworth)

In 2019, four Hunter Valley coal mines, including Mt Thorley Warkworth, were issued six notices to fix up their rehabilitation and other environmental management, according to a Hunter Valley News article.

The article stated that: “At Mt Thorley Warkworth, an inspection recognised ongoing delays in the progression of rehabilitation areas; limited documented records to address the risks to rehabilitation; and limited documented measures or actions to improve progressive rehabilitation performance.”

Lock the Gate, an anti-coal coalition, responded in the article that failing to keep up with rehabilitation duties was unacceptable.

Then, in April 2020, the mine was fined $15,000 by the EPA for “a large cloud of blasting dust that engulfed neighbouring properties in August last year.”

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
M0078.B1	mine boundary	surface	Mt Thorley Warkworth mine boundary	extracted	2024-03-30 00:00:00
M0078.P1	other	preparation plant	coal handling and processing plant	extracted	2023-05-01 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 16, 2025

ID	Notes
M0078.B1	Page 1 of Forward Program – 2024 to 2026 Mount Thorley Warkworth, published 3/30/2024, https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.yancoal.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/240322-FP-Yancoal-MTW_Final_Full.pdf, lists the mining leases for the : CCL753, CL219, ML1828, ML1752, ML1412, ML1590, ML1751 and ML1828. Figure 2: Plan 2B: Mining and rehabilitation - Year 2 (2025) on page 11 shows the boundaries of the leases for both Warkworth and Mount Thorley mines. The boundary is the perimeter of all of the mining leases above. Mining lease polygons were extracted from the Geological Survey NSW GeoServer web feature service https://web.archive.org/web/20250427032655/https://www.resources.nsw.gov.au/geological-survey/products-and-data/gis-web-services. The area of the boundary is approximately 63 sq km.
M0078.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
2023-11-30T22:06:44+00	CarbonMapper, emi20231130t220644p14006-B	-32.6303, 151.0542	–	New South Wales State Methane Observation 2023-11-30, 2
2025-01-21T00:20:06+00	CarbonMapper, tan20250121t002006c00s4001-G	-32.6289, 151.0576	1203.092 kg/hr	New South Wales State Methane Observation 2025-01-21, 6
2025-01-21T00:20:06+00	CarbonMapper, tan20250121t002006c00s4001-F	-32.6151, 151.0566	576.7439 kg/hr	New South Wales State Methane Observation 2025-01-21, 7
2025-01-21T00:20:06+00	CarbonMapper, tan20250121t002006c00s4001-E	-32.6011, 151.0418	947.893 kg/hr	New South Wales State Methane Observation 2025-01-21, 8
2025-02-13T00:27:06+00	CarbonMapper, tan20250213t002706c00s4001-E	-32.5967, 151.0385	1556.72 kg/hr	New South Wales State Methane Observation 2025-02-13, 5
2025-06-26T00:43:42+00	CarbonMapper, tan20250626t004342c59s4001-A	-32.5976, 151.0393	–	New South Wales State Methane Observation 2025-06-26, 2

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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.