Amid its bag of tenements in southeast NT, Central has intersected seams of up to 34.6 metres as part of drilling campaigns for coal bed methane resources.

Most of the intersections are at depths far exceeding the deepest Australian longwall mines, but exploration is only in early phases.

The most promising intersection was at a depth of 296.5m, where a 21.4m seam was found.

“That’s the shallowest that we have drilled to date but we don’t know the full extent of the coal updip from there,” Heugh told ILN.

“We cover such a huge area – we just don’t know the boundaries of it yet.”

He anticipates that there will be a good level of tonnage for shallow open cut mining.

“The coal appears to be remarkably uniform in its thickness and distribution and we anticipate from seismic, and there is a fair bit of seismic out there, that there will be shallower coal.”

Central has received expressions of interest from various parties over its coal tenements, including some usual suspects from India and China, but ideally the explorer prefers to work with parties closer to home.

“We would probably prefer to deal with an Aussie group,” Heugh said.

“It’s interesting that Rio Tinto have got mining permits over the coal there too.”

Testing of the washed coal has indicated that a thermal coal comparable to qualities exported from Queensland and New South Wales can be achieved.

Preliminary indicative qualities include an energy content of between 5000 and 6000 kilocalories per kilogram, with 8-19% moisture on an air-dried basis along with 8-19% ash content.

On possible port and rail logistics to the basin, Heugh said a rail link of about 250 kilometres in a straight line could link up the Adelaide-Darwin rail line, which had about 20Mt per annum of capacity.

This major rail line connects to Darwin’s port, where a coal export terminal will have to be built, while there is the potential to also hook up to the port of Whyalla in South Australia.

While Central views coal mining in the region as a marginal possibility at this stage, the company is also seeking to monetise its coal-to-liquids and underground coal gasification opportunities.

The company has set an exploration target of 300 billion tonnes of resources at depths of less than 1000m in its considerable acreage in the basin.