Highvale Mine

Located south of Lake Wabamun, about 70 kilometres (43 miles) west of Edmonton, Alberta, Highvale Mine is one of three TransAlta-owned surface coal mines, and Canada’s largest surface strip coal mine, covering  more than 12,600 hectares. TransAlta through its wholly owned subsidiary, SunHills Mining Limited Partnership assumed operating and management control of the Highvale Mine on January 17, 2013.

Highvale has been in operation since 1970. Currently, six pits are actively licensed and mined (pits 03, 04, 05, 06, 07 and 08). TransAlta has applied to Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, and the Energy Resources Conservation Board for a licence to develop, operate and reclaim a new mine pit (pit 09) within the current Highvale Mine permit boundary. Pit 09 is located south of pit 08 and northeast of the North Saskatchewan River. Surface coal mining involves salvaging of topsoil and subsoil for later replacement, then removing overlying rock layers to expose and extract coal reserves, followed by reclamation of the mined area. Highvale operates four draglines for this purpose.

Approximately 12 million tonnes of low-sulphur-content thermal-grade coal are mined at Highvale each year and delivered to TransAlta’s Sundance and Keephills thermal generating plants. The Keephills 3 thermal plant began commercial operations in 2011 requiring an additional 1.8 million tonnes each year.

Since 1970, TransAlta has reclaimed 1,361 hectares of the 5,865 hectares of land that have been mined at Highvale. We reclaim land to a state that is equivalent to or better than it was before our mining activities, or restore it for other uses. When complete, the reclaimed land supports a variety of land uses such as agriculture, woodlands, wildlife habitat, recreation and wetlands.
 

Equipment details:

Draglines

• Bucyrus 8750  - 84 cubic metre bucket
• Bucyrus 8750 – 76 cubic metre bucket
• Bucyrus 8050 – 48 cubic metre bucket
• Bucyrus Erie 1360 – 41 cubic metre bucket

Electric Shovels/Backhoes

• Bucyrus 495 – 57 cubic metre bucket
• P&H 4100 – 43 cubic metre bucket 
• Two Bucyrus RH170 Backhoes 

Haul Trucks

• Six 400 tonne Liebherr T 282 Bs
• Four 320 tonne Komatsu 930 Es
• Six 190 tonne Caterpillar 789
• Eleven 154 tonne Caterpillar 776
• Three 150 tonne Caterpillar 776C