Construction giant Leighton Holdings Ltd (ASX: LEI) says its subsidiary Thiess Pty Ltd has been awarded a six-year $1.3 billion contract to extend mining operations at Peabody Energy Australia’s Burton Coal Mine in Queensland’s resource rich Bowen Basin.

Thiess has operated the Burton Coal Mine for the past 14 years and this contract will prolong the life of mine until 2016.

Thiess Managing Director David Saxelby said “The contract is recognition of Thiess’ position as Australia’s leading contract miner and we look forward to building on our strong relationship with Peabody in Australia.”

Thiess started operations at Burton in 1996 and has mined close to 50 million tonnes of hard coking coal and thermal coal from various pits within the 45 kilometre project site for export to a number of international markets including Asia, Europe, India and South America.

This new contract will allow Thiess to maintain Burton’s annual production capacity of over 2.5 million tonnes of coal per annum.

Thiess Mining Chief Executive Bruce Munro said that the Peabody contract would see operations return to the original mining area started in 1996.

“The high quality coal will be mined to a depth of up to 240 metres, making this operation the deepest open-cut operation in the Bowen Basin,” Mr Munro said.

The Burton Coal Mine extension will employ more than 500 people and will see Thiess mobilise an additional Liebherr R9800 – one of the world’s largest mining backhoe excavators – to work in tandem with the first excavator which has been operating at Burton for nine months.

A fleet of Caterpillar 797 trucks, the largest in the Cat range, will service the two big excavators, emphasising the scale of the work.