Hunter Region Branch: Upcoming and recent events April 2026
Upcoming events
Wednesday 20 May – Orica plant site visit – Kooragang Island
June – Tech talk – Singleton
July – Student Chapter Quick Fire Night
Tuesday 4 August – Women in Mining event - Pokolbin
Wednesday 19 August - JORC seminar – Singleton
September – Armidale Tech Talk – Armidale
September – Students attend New Leaders & Mining Games - Brisbane
October – Jameson Distinguished Lecture – Newcastle
November – AusIMM Congress - Newcastle
Other tech talks and site visits are in the planning phase and details will be advised in due course.
Hunter Region Branch - Orica Kooragang Island Facility Tour – Wed 20 May
The Hunter Region Branch invites AusIMM Members to the Orica Kooragang Island Facility Tour.
This visit will include a presentation covering site operations, including key processes and products, with updates on the Hunter Valley Hydrogen Hub project and the MCi carbon capture and storage demonstration plant. Attendees will then undertake a walking tour of the ammonia plant, nitric acid plants and ammonium nitrate plants, followed by a Q&A session.
Date: Wednesday, 20 May 2026
Time:2.00pm - 5.00pm
Venue:Orica Kooragang Island Operations, 75 Greenleaf Rd, Kooragang, NSW 2304
Past event recaps
March tech talk – thermal coal market update
On Wednesday 11 March about 20 members enjoyed an excellent presentation from Argus Media on the current and future outlook for thermal coal. This tech talk was held at an informal venue, The Bar on the Hill at Newcastle Uni, and was followed by food and drinks. Argus is a price reporting agency with HQ in London and 29 offices worldwide.
Australian thermal coal exports are currently relatively stable at around 209 Mtpa, with 35% of product going to Japan and 32% to China.
Our largest market is Japan which imports 122 Mtpa, of which 66% is from Australia and 20% from Indonesia. The Japanese government is reluctant to phase out coal, but has adopted abatement strategies. One strategy is to impose a thermal efficiency target of 43%, prompted by ash disposal issues. This will reduce tonnage for the same calorific value.
China is the world’s largest producer of coal, (more than 10x Australia’s production) at 4831 Mtpa. 2025 production was the highest in a decade. Imports of thermal coal are 357 Mt, 59% of which is from Australia. They use lignite a lot for blending. Hydro & nuclear installed capacity grew by only 3% each, year-on-year in 2025. Solar and wind power are increasing. Future goal is for coal to be used as a backup rather than the primary energy source.
India is an opportunistic buyer with only 4% of its imports from Australia. South African exports to India were more expensive than from Australia in late January to February 2025, even though the freight costs were the same at the time.
Indonesia is the world’s largest thermal coal exporter. The majority of exports are lignite and sub-bituminous coal. The government intends to reduce output in 2026. However, this will not benefit Australia much as bituminous coal is only a small proportion of exports.
The Iran war has an effect on the LNG market, but only an indirect effect on the coal market.
In the medium term, although there is potential for tonnage reductions to Japan & China, there is some potential for Indonesian coal replacement, opportunistic sales to India, and other markets such as Vietnam.