Yancoal Australia recently welcomed 23 Year 11 students from John Calvin Christian College to its Premier coal mine.
Yancoal manages the Premier coal mine on behalf of its majority shareholder Yanzhou Coal Mining Company.
The Premier coal mine is Western Australia’s largest coal producer, mining about three million tonnes per annum. It is situated in the Collie Coal Basin in the southwest of WA, about 200 kilometres south-south-east of Perth.
The students from John Calvin Christian College explored the mine as part of their Geography class, where they are focusing on coal mining.
The excursion started with a tour of the replica underground mine at the Collie Visitor Centre. The students then camped out overnight at Lake Kepwari, a recreational campsite that was once an open cut coal mine.
The next day, the students arrived onsite at Premier to learn about how coal is formed, as well as the mine’s current operational activities, environmental management and mining equipment maintenance.
“By being onsite we could bring learning to life for the students. They had lots of questions and were interested in seeing and experiencing the different areas of the operation,” Premier Coal operations manager Braedon Gaske said.
“We are always happy to have students visit our site so we can offer a practical experience and engage them in a potential future career pathway.”
John Calvin Christian College geography teacher Nathan Houweling said the students enjoyed their visit to Premier Coal.
“They particularly liked touring the workshop and viewing the equipment up close. Experiences like this are great at opening the student’s minds to all the opportunities available to them,” Houweling said.