Annual Coal Review 1987 COAL REPORT BYRON CREEK

A world-wide oversupply of thermal coal forced Byron Creek Collieries (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Esso Resources Canada) to significantly reduce the scale of its operations at the Coal Mountain mine, in southeastern B.C., last year. Production was cut to 870,000 tonnes from an anticipated one million ton nes per year.

Byron Creek will continue to operate at a reduced scale until market conditions improve, but the company still strongly believes in the future of coal. To tha t end, $50 million was invested in a new, heavy-media, wash- plant-and-dryer com plex completed in July, 1986. The unit is capable of operating in conjunction with, or independently of, the original preparation plant.

The plant enables the mine to exploit the full potential of its reserves. Lower-quality coal can be processed to meet market specifications while higher-quali ty coal can be produced, enabling the mine to enter new markets. In 1986 Byron C reek began shipping weak coking coal to the Japanese steel industry.

A $5-million maintenance-and- warehouse facility was added to the operation. The 1,300-sq-m facility has eight bays, each with the capacity to accommodate a 154-tonne haulage truck. This addition improves the efficiency of on-site maintenance and provides the necessary storage area for mobile equipment and machiner y replacement parts.

With improved efficiency and delayed growth, Byron Creek has taken steps to adjust to market conditions while retaining flexibility to respond to market chang es. Esso Resources predicts Canada will be a major exporter of thermal coal by t he year 2000. Byron Creek will continue to satisfy existing commitments to domes tic thermal coal customers and to the Japanese steel industry. *