Austar Coal Mine (Austar) is a deep underground coal mine located approximately 10km south west of Cessnock in the Newcastle Coalfields of New South Wales, Australia.

Austar Coalmine is owned by Yancoal Australia Pty Ltd, an Australian - Chinese partnership. Yancoal purchased the mine in December 2004 and renamed it Austar Coal Mine.

Austar commenced mining operations in April 2005 undertaking underground mining activities within the company’s existing mining lease area and introduced a new technology called Longwall Top Coal Caving (LTCC) technology in September 2006.

Introduced in France, and further refined in China for the last 15 years, top coal caving uses a modified longwall mining system. LTCC technology is ideal in thick seams and enables significantly greater resource recovery in seams such as the Greta Seam.

The introduction of LTCC to Australia is a collaborative effort between Chinese, German and Australian engineers. Austar’s parent company Yanzhou Coal Mining Company is acknowledged as being one of the safest and most productive users of the technique.