Continental Coal said it had yielded the intervals after it started a 60 hole drilling program at its Serowe and Kweneng thermal coal projects.

At Serowe, the company intercepted coal intervals at eight of the 11 first drill holes, with the coal horizons measuring at 84.6m and 56.9m in thickness at depths of 59.87m and 90m respectively.

Up to 13 samples have been taken per hole and are awaiting transportation to South African laboratories for testing.

Drilling at Serowe will continue through November, while the 10 hole drill program at the Kweneng tenement will be completed in December 2011.

Continental said the drilling was aimed at identifying shallow to moderate depth coal which could be economically exploitable across both the Serowe and Kweneng projects.

The Serowe project has a 4700 million tonnes exploration target while Kweneng has a 1850Mt exploration target.

Continental already has two operating mines in South Africa, Vlakvarkfontein and Ferreira, which both produce 2 million tonnes per annum of thermal coal.