Anglo kickstarts coal mine in northeastern B.C.

Vancouver – Having reopened its Trend coal mine, a consortium led by Anglo Coal Canada is eyeing expansion near Tumbler Ridge in northeastern British Columbia.

Equipped with a new $20 million coal wash plant, the Trend mine is expected to produce about 2 million tonnes of metallurgical coal annually for sale to customers in the Japanese steel industry.

It is part of a basket of coal mining licences in B.C. that are being developed by Peace River Coal, a consortium owned 60% by Anglo, 20% by Northern Energy & Mining (NEMI) (NNEa-T) and Hillsborough Resources (HLB-T, HLSRF-O).

Now that the launching of a new wash plant allows the consortium to produce a higher quality coal, its next step will be to issue a feasibility study for the Belcourt Saxon property, which covers 50,000 hectares of coal-bearing licences located about 30 kilometres south of the Trend mine

“This is a very large deposit,” said Gary Livingstone, President of Western Canadian Coal (WTN-T, WXJXF-O), which has a 50% stake in the Belcourt Saxon property. He estimated that the property could contain a coal resource of as much as 300 million tonnes. David Austin, a director with NEMI, said the consortium could be looking at production rate of between 6 million and 15 million tonnes a year from Belcourt.

It is production on that scale which attracted Anglo, which is part of the coal operations of Anglo American (AAUK-Q, AAL-L), one of the world’s largest mining firms.

“Anglo didn’t come here just to do 2 million tonnes a year out of the Trend mine,” Mr. Austin said. “That isn’t quite their game plane, he said. However, Anglo is expected to get a better handle on its future production when the feasibility study is released, likely in the second quarter of 2007