Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – South Africa-focused coal miner Universal Coal has been granted a mining right over its Brakfontein coal project by the Department of Mineral Resources.
CEO Tony Weber said on Thursday that the award of a mining right was another key step in the project’s development, which would be the company’s third following the successful development of the Kangala colliery and the New Clydesdale colliery acquisition.
"Kangala has excess capacity, enabling production to increase from its current 2.4-million-tonne-a-year run-of-mine (RoM) rate to 4.25-million tonnes a year. Given Brakfontein's close proximity to the Kangala colliery, Universal Coal is evaluating the trucking of RoM coal to Kangala as an option in the feasibility study, thereby, substantially reducing capital development costs and the scale of the water licence required,” said Weber.
Brakfontein currently hosts a Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant thermal coal resource of 87.6-million tonnes, of which 70.5-million tonnes was estimated to be in the measured category.
Universal has already secured the National Environmental Management Act authorisation for the project, and Brakfontein now only requires the grant of the integrated water use licence and the waste licence before development activities can start.