Now that the application for exploration and exploitation at Amaam, submitted last year, has been granted, a mining licence will be issued by the end of the month.

The licence covers about 40% of Amaam’s Area 3. Once additional drilling and study work is complete, Tiger plans to apply for the remainder of the Amaam deposit, comprised of 412Mt of coking coal.

The current licence is targeted for early-life open pit mining and includes 36.5Mt of indicated resources and 117Mt of inferred resources.

Upon conversion of the Amaam exploration licence to mining, Tiger’s Realm will increase ownership of the deposit from 40% to 60%.

It will move to 80% ownership upon completion of the bankable feasibility study underway.

The company also announced that its proposal for the construction of a sea port and coal terminal had moved before the Russian government. While the company waits for approval, it will progress environmental and engineering studies as required by the approval process.

Amaam’s prefeasibility study remains on track for completion this month.

The company said in December that 30,000m of resource definition drilling had been conducted there since 2008, as well as additional outcrop mapping, trenching and analysis of data from various Soviet-era geological expeditions.

The drilling program has so far confirmed Tigers’ initial interpretation of the deposit as a large-scale, high-quality coking coal resource.

Average cumulative thickness is estimated to be 10-11m, though drillholes have intersected cumulative coal thicknesses up to 25m.