Anglo American, Xstrata, BHP get expansion approval for JV mine

18th Aug 2011 07:14

FTSE 100 mining giants Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Xstrata have announced that a coal mine in Colombia, in which they own a 33.3% interest each, has received approval for its $1.3bn expansion project.The expansion is expected to increase the production and export capacity at its Cerrejón mine in La Guajira by 8m tonnes per annum (mpta) from 32 mpta to 40 mpta by 2015.Anglo American said that it has approved its $437m share of the project with joint venture partners, Xstrata and BHP Billiton, investing equal amounts."One of the largest coal deposits in the world, Cerrejón has a resource base of approximately 5 billion tonnes, of which 2.1 billion tonnes are currently at a measured and indicated export quality status," Xstrata said.Construction of the project is to start in the third quarter and will be finished by 2013."The P40 project will include increasing coal production and coal handling capacity at the Cerrejon mine and coal handling and ship-loading capacity at its 100% owned and operated port, Puerto Bolivar, including the construction of an additional loading berth," Anglo American said.Meanwhile, BHP said the expansion project will see its estimated share of production and sales from the long life, tier 1 asset increase from 10.7mtpa to 13.3mtpa.BC