The November 6 report from Norwest confirmed the deposit’s M&I resource at 468 million tonnes, up from 166 million tonnes.

Carbon Creek’s established initial proven and probable reserve are 121Mt, pointing to an initial mine life of 20 years.

The report also found that, based on the results, the average clean coal production rate could be estimated at 4.1Mtpa, up notably from a prior projection of 2.9Mtpa between 2016 and 2034.

Over Carbon Creek’s lifetime, coal production is expected to be about 78.4Mt, with 60% of planned output classified as hard coking coal. A previous estimate for HCC was 35%.

Norwest provided some good financial news to Cardero as well: that pre-production capital projection had been reduced from $C301 million to $217 million.

Including pre-production capital, it will take capital of $475 million to bring the project to full production.

Once in operation, operating costs should average $110/t, down from $114 on previous projections.

Carbon Creek should have first coal by the first quarter of 2014 and be cashflow-positive within three years.

Late last month, the miner arranged a non-brokered private placement for the property of up to $10 million, and also confirmed it planned to take a $10 million bridge-loan facility from Toronto-based Sprott Resource Lending Partnership.

The deal, which was still pending approval from the Toronto Stock Exchange and the NYSE MKT at that time, will be used to fund the preparation of the bankable feasibility study, coal quality analysis and environmental baseline work at Carbon Creek.

Sprott will be granted a first charge over shares in Cardero’s Carbon Creek Ltd subsidiary, which will pledge all its interest in the project and related assets to secure the loan.