The drilling will start near the site of the former Mataura Opencast Mine later this month, extending to the north and west. Drilling will also be undertaken in the Croydon area to the north of the Mataura coal field, as well as south of Mataura.

Up to five drill rigs will be in operation at any one time: at least three will be dedicated to resource definition and one to geotechnical and groundwater studies.

Solid Energy currently has access to more than 600 million tonnes of coal, mostly lignite, in the Eastern Southland area through its Ohai, Mataura and New Vale mines and through an active program of land acquisition over the last 18 months.

“Over recent months Solid Energy has been actively investigating how it might best use our huge lignite resources in Southland. Our work is looking at a range of options including increased use of lignites by industrial markets, electricity generation, transport fuels, petrochemicals and other products,” Solid Energy chief operating officer Barry Bragg said.

Solid Energy also plans to undertake resource definition drilling at its recently acquired New Vale resource later in the year.

In other Solid Energy news, operations at the company’s Spring Creek underground mine are back to normal after work in one section was stopped on Wednesday night last week after a small methane ignition.

The ignition happened while a crew was using a drill rig to install a large rib-support bolt.

Solid Energy said it was quickly put out with fire extinguishers and all staff were withdrawn from the mine.

Following an inspection of the area and discussions with the crew involved, work resumed in other areas of the mine.

The affected area was secured and the Mines Inspectorate investigated the incident.

Spring Creek Mine is currently in development, with staff forming a new pit bottom and underground access roads into more than 3Mt of coal in the Rapahoe sector to the north of the area already mined.