Gloucester this morning said the jump in coal reserves from the last update at the end of May 2008 included 3.5Mt at Duralie, mostly from the Clareval seam, and 5.1Mt at Roseville West and Roseville South.

During the seven months from the last update, Gloucester said 110,000t of Run of Mine coal had been mined from the Roseville Seam while 970,000t and 520,000t had been mined from the Duralie main pit and Bowens Road North pit areas respectively.

Of the company’s recently announced coal exploration program in Queensland’s Gloucester Basin, Gloucester said drilling targeting the Clareval Seam will continue near Stratford for the next six months.

“About 60 drill holes are planned to provide data that will enable JORC resources to be estimated over four kilometres of strike length of the seam sub crop and down to 150 metres of cover,” Gloucester said.

Meanwhile, Gloucester chief executive Rob Lord said the upgrade to the Stratford preparation plant is due for completion next year, resulting in a ramp up from 3.2Mt per annum to 4.3Mtpa of raw coal.

“Building on our successes to date, our coal exploration program has been expanded,” he said.

“We have set ambitious exploration targets and have the resources to deliver on those targets. Concept studies are now underway to support even further increases in production. I am confident there is more good news to come from Gloucester Coal.”

Resource updates are expected later in the year.

Shares in the company were trading mid-morning up 8c to $A3.53.