The move comes after the company unveiled plans to postpone production ramp up at the mine, earlier this year, citing low coal prices.
Bathurst Resources managing director Hamish Bohannan said: "Our initial activities at Escarpment will be low key during this first phase of development.
"The intention is to prepare the site to a point where we can quickly ramp up to steady state mining when the price of export coking coal recovers."
The company said that a small team of workers is now engaged full time on site, fences and signage have been erected.
Additionally, current activities are paving way for coal storage, site infrastructure and initial earthworks for the installation of water management systems.
Bathurst plans to conduct further preliminary site works at the mine; however it said the full development of the mine site will be deferred until international coking coal prices improve.
