Marketable coal reserves at Coalspur Mines‘ (CPT-T) flagship Vista project in Alberta have risen 20% to 313 million tonnes from the 260 million tonnes estimated in the prefeasibility study. The 313 million tonnes will come from a recoverable coal reserve of about 566 million tonnes.
The increase in marketable reserves is part of an ongoing bankable feasibility study that is expected to be finished at the end of December and published early next year.
Coalspur says the rise in marketable reserves can be attributed to a larger pit limit, improvements to clean coal yields and a refined mining and coal recovery plan. The final mine plan envisions a 20.1 million tonne per year run-of-mine operation that would produce 11.2 million tonnes per year of saleable thermal coal for roughly thirty years.
The company plans to export its coal mainly to the Asian economies of China, Japan and Korea and its management believes the Vista project “has the potential to be the largest export thermal coal mine in Canada.”
In November Coalspur signed a memorandum of understanding with CN under which the two companies will develop a logistics supply chain to transport coal from Vista to ports in Western Canada, including Prince Rupert, beginning in 2015. A definitive transportation agreement will be negotiated next year after the bankable feasibility is completed, the company says.
Earlier this year, Coalspur signed an agreement with Ridley Terminals at the port of Prince Rupert to handle up to 8.5 million tonnes of export coal a year at the terminal.
Coalspur and CN will jointly design and build a rail siding at Vista that will be capable of handling the loading to trains with as many as 175 cars.
In December Coalspur acquired 7,296 hectares of coal-bearing leases from the Alberta government that are about 10 km northwest of the Vista project.
Exploratory drilling on the new leases will get underway in the spring of 2012.
At presstime Coalspur was trading at $1.71 within a 52-wek range of $1.25-$3.26. The company has about 532.2 million shares outstanding.
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