JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Metallurgical coal producer Cokal on Thursday said it had identified over 35 coal seam outcrops after a month of geological-surface mapping in the company’s newly acquired Tambung Benua Alam Raya (TBAR) project, in Indonesia.

Cokal owns 75% interest in the greenfield TBAR project, which is adjacent to the company’s Bumi Barito Mineral (BBM) coking coal project, in central Kalimantan.

The TBAR exploration licence covers an area of 18 850 ha and initial coal analysis results indicated that all coal seams at TBAR were potentially coking coal.

Cokal stated that, although mapping had covered only about 25% of the TBAR tenement area to date, the results were encouraging, with a number of outcrops measuring between 1.75 m to 1.85 m in thickness.

“Although TBAR had never been explored in the past, we had an idea that there was strong potential to find coking coal based on the coal geology we delineated in BBM...These initial results confirm our interpretation of the geology of the basin and we are confident of finding further undiscovered metallurgical coal in the region,” the company said in a statement.

Cokal executive director Pat Hanna indicated that the laboratory results on the initial outcrop samples confirmed its expectations that the coal seams in TBAR would have premium metallurgical properties.

“Some results confirm the outcrops are in fact coking coal with crucible swelling numbers of eight and nine, which is unusual to find when the coking properties are expected to have been oxidised. This indicates that the depth to which Cokal may find fresh premium coking coal could be as little as 5 m below the surface.

“The initial analysis results of the raw coal samples indicate ranges of properties consistent with a premium coking coal product. The volatile matter values are typical for coking coals in the Marawai coal basin ranging from 14% to 22 %,” he noted, while adding that the company was progressing the geological mapping of TBAR and aimed to complete the survey in the next three months.

The next phase of exploration would involve drilling shallow boreholes nearby the outcrops to confirm the coking properties of the coal seam outcrops. The results of the drilling programme would provide an initial coal resource in accordance with the Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee code for the project.

Cokal further stated that the TBAR project would leverage the coal-handling logistics that were being developed for the BBM project, using shallow-river barging in the upper Barito river. The haul road used to take BBM’s coking coal to the barge loading port also passed through the TBAR tenement.

The company added that development of the TBAR project would significantly contribute towards its strategy to become a major producer of metallurgical coal in central Kalimantan’s Marawai basin.