In the report Wood Mackenzie detailed Ovoot’s highly attractive properties and confirmed it would meet the global seaborne market requirements.

Wood Mackenzie said the coal in Ovoot presented valuable opportunities, as it could be blended with cheaper inert coals because it had high vitrinite contact and good fluidity.

The report also said Ovoot had “a strongly caking, hard coking coal with superior blend carrying capacity”

Based on available quality data, the report also stated Ovoot was in an ideal range for mid volatile hard coking coal and fat coal classifications.

Aspire Mining managing director David Paull said the positive results reinforced the company’s high expectations of the project.

“The Wood Mackenzie report confirms our view that Ovoot is a quality coking coal by any measure,” Paull said.

“Confirmation that hard coking coal prices are an appropriate benchmark for Ovoot coking coal provides us with confidence to progress a prefeasibility study into the larger scale development of the project.”

Paull said the coal produced from Ovoot would provide Aspire with various export markets, including China, India and Brazil.

Aspire is considering splitting the development of Ovoot into two stages, with the first stage a small scale 0.5-1 million tonne per annum starter open pit.

Stage two development would lift production to as much as 12Mtpa of coking coal.

A stage two scoping study is expected to be finished by the end of 2011, with an estimated mine start-up time in the latter part of next year.