In his address at the company’s annual general meeting yesterday, chairman Chris Rawlings set out the future focus.

“With the intention to commence production at the Maryborough project over the next 12 months and the Elimatta project having reached its first reserve milestone, our capital needs will increase – firstly to establish the Colton mine at Maryborough and secondly to position both the Elimatta and Yamala projects for development in the coming years,” he said.

“Our preferred approach from this point will be to introduce partners to these projects.”

Despite the economic climate, Rawlings said motivated buyers of resources remained.

“Northern Energy is looking to tap this interest right now in the case of the Maryborough project and we are about to commence the marketing of an interest in the Elimatta project,” he said.

“Clearly the immediate investment environment is very uncertain and as reported earlier in the month the prevailing conditions have disrupted our Maryborough partner search process.

“Nevertheless we remain engaged with a number of interested parties, several of whom have joined the process late and since the change in market circumstances.”

Rawlings said the company’s immediate response to the current environment was to review budget expenditure and to reduce activities to conserve cash.

He added that no further discovery exploration would be undertaken until there is a change in the financial market environment.

The company has around $8 million currently held as cash, according to the chairman.

Northern Energy is targeting production of about 200,000 tonnes per annum from Colton over an initial mine life of five years.

In September, Northern Energy announced it had increased the total resource of its Elimatta project in the Surat Basin to 244 million tonnes while the month before the explorer announced it had increased the total Yamala resource in the Bowen Basin to 220Mt.

However, both of these updates were not JORC compliant.

Northern Energy Corporation currently has 83% of the Yamala Coal Joint Venture while Japanese trading house Sojitz subsidiary CHR Emerald holds 17%.

CHR can earn another 13% from Northern Energy by funding $2.3 million of exploration costs and a further 19% through a payment of $6.65 million to Northern Energy.