[miningmx.com] — WESCOAL Holdings announced Tuesday its subsidiary Wescoal Exploration has been awarded a new order prospecting right by the department of mineral resources over certain portions of the farm Vlaklaagte 330JS, situated in the Witbank district.
Vlaklaagte lies 13km south west of Witbank, in close proximity to Anglo Coal’s Greenside colliery and X-Strata Coal’s Tweefontein colliery. Both Greenside and Tweefontein collieries produce coal products for the export market.
Historical data from 23 boreholes have been sourced from Anglo Coal and the Council for Geosciences, which show the portions of Vlaklaagte covered by the NOPR having an inferred resource of 20.1 million tons of coal consisting of four economically recoverable seams.
Further exploration drilling will commence during 2011 to confirm the historical data and to raise the confidence level to measured status, following which an application for a new order mining right will be submitted to the DMR.
The award of the right brings the total resource under prospecting rights held by Wescoal to an expected 97.2 million tonnes.
