The agreement is with Colorado’s Department of Wildlife and adds 14,387 contiguous acres to its initial 15,553-acre DOW lease in Las Animas County for a total coal lease property size of 29,940 acres.

The initial lease area from the state agency contained 330.3 million tons of resources and according to a 2011 National Instrument 43-101 report by Agapito Associates, the New Elk property contains a total 388.5Mt.

Cline officials said the extended lease area was coal bearing.

It has retained Agapito once again to prepare a NI 43-101 report on the extension and a resource report from the work is expected by May 24.

In March, Cline chief operating officer and executive vice-president Dennis Mraz told the Trinidad Times Independent local newspaper it would add 150 employees to meet the demand of ramped up production and what was then a potential expansion.

At the time, he told the paper the future of the operation, which would ship its output to overseas steelmakers, was looking good.

“We want to make the point that we’re here to stay,” Mraz said.

“We have found more coal than we expected and it’s of a higher quality than we first thought.

“We hope to get to the point where we’re shipping three million tons per year.”

In addition to Colorado, Cline also has a metallurgical coal property in British Columbia, Canada.