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Daw Mill colliery, located at Arley, near Coventry in the West Midlands, is the single largest coal producing mine in the UK, mining a five-metre thick section of the Warwickshire Thick seam some 750 metres below the ground. The present Daw Mill shafts, 558 metres and 556 metres deep, were sunk between 1957 and 1959 and 1969 and 1971 respectively. In 1982, a drift (an inclined tunnel) linking underground workings with the surface was completed enabling Daw Mill to increase production capacity by removing the bottleneck of winding coal up the shafts.

Mining at Daw Mill is currently continuing on the same panel as was mined for most of 2008 (its record production year) with mining at this panel expected to continue until the end of 2009 before its replacement becomes operational in January 2010 (which is expected to last until March 2011). The Group has recently prioritised development work at Daw Mill and in that regard the Group has carried out an extensive re-plan of the mine layout to reduce the pressure on developments and to increase the total mineable reserves in the current block of coal. At Daw Mill, substantial investment in equipment and increased development expenditure is being made to improve the long term reliability of its output. The Company expects to be able to continue to mine coal at Daw Mill by accessing further resources until 2028.