Polish gov’t rejects Bogdanka appeal

Poland’s Ministry of Environment (MoE) has ruled against Bogdanka’s appeal over the MeE’s decision not to grant an application for a mining concession over the concession of a rival coal miner, Prairie Mining.

Bogdanka, which owns a mine adjacent to the disputed concession area, has been attempting to poach Prairie’s right to mine the K-6-7 area of the Lublin Coal Basin in southeast Poland by applying for a mining concession over the area of Prairie’s existing exploration concession. In blocking the move, the MoE established that owners of exploration concessions have the “exclusive pathway” to progress to a mining concession, the company said in a statement.

“We are pleased that the Polish government has upheld the rejection of Bogdanka’s opportunistic application for a mining concession,” said Ben Stoikovich, CEO of Prairie. “This final decision confirms, beyond any doubt, our exclusive right to progress towards a mining concession over this valuable coal deposit without hindrance.”

The K-6-7 concession area forms an integral part of the company’s Lublin Coal Project, which aims to develop a large-scale metallurgical coal mine. The project area has a current resource estimation of 1.6 billion t. A scoping study was completed in April of this year and pre-feasibility study is due in the first half of 2015.

The Bogdanka mine lies adjacent to Prairie’s concessions and produces 8 million tpa of coal with a target to increase output to 11.5 million t in 2015. It is the lowest-cost hard coal mine in Europe.

Written by Jonathan Rowland.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcoal.com/mining/17112014/world-coal-polish-government-rejects-bogdanka-mining-concession-appeal1579/