US leads the way in productivity

摘要

The US and Australia come out as being the most productive countries (in terms of output per worker) of those surveyed in the coal and gold. In the coal sector, the US is massively more productive, with volume output per worker around twice as high as even Australia. However, productivity in the US coal industry is boosted by the fact that such a significant share of production is concentrated in some large operations (e.g. Peabody’s North Antelope Rochelle mine in the Powder River Basin; 100Mt) whose use of draglines is more efficient than the truck and shovel operations elsewhere.