Australia’s metallurgical coal group Cokal Limited has announced an upgrade of its coal resources at the Bumi Barito Mineral (BBM) project in central Kalimantan, Indonesia. The updated resources comprise of 10.5 million t of measured, 13.5 million t of indicated and 240 million t of inferred coal resources.
The additional coal resources have been determined as coking coal from analytical results. An economic analysis of the resource is underway to determine the ratio of open pit to underground coal extraction.
Cokal Executive Director, Pat Hanna explained: “this coal resource upgrade is in line with the exploration target previously announced. Further drilling will define additional coal resources and increase the proportion of measured and indicated resources”.
The upgrade amounts to a 340% increase from previous estimates to 264 million t. Cokal also updated the estimated product split to 90% coking coal and 10% pulverised coal injection.
Cokal said it expects to begin production from the project in the first half of 2014 at a rate of 2 million tpa of direct shipping product. Stage two development of the project will see production increase to 6 million tpa.
Adapted from press release by Katie Woodward