This discovery, with the micro basin estimated to be 500m long by 200m wide with up to 45m gross coal seams, was based on data from 91 exploration drill holes including 85 rotary holes and 6 polycrystalline compact diamond-drilled holes used for coal quality analysis.
“These large shallow coal intersections are by far the thickest ever discovered at the Company’s leases in the Noyon sub-basin,” Guildford said.
“Guildford has commenced the BNU East Pit in order to expose the low strip ratio coking coal as quickly as possible.”
The shallow coal finds typically occurred at depths of less than 58m and were as close as 200m to the existing BNU East pit.
Mining only started at BNU East on June 29.
Production at BNU started up in the second half of 2014 with the first commercial shipment of 6000 tonnes of coal to Chinese steelmaker achieved in March.
The mine was initially targeting up to one million tonnes per annum of low-ash, low-sulphur hard coking coal production for Chinese steelmakers.
