JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The first sale of midvolatile “lean” coal mined at Coal of Africa Limited’s (CoAL’s) Mooiplaats thermal coal project, in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province, has been completed.

The emerging coal-miner on Tuesday reported that the loading of its first train had taken place on September 11, with a second train loaded on September 12.

Both trains were destined for the Matola Coal Terminal in Maputo, in Mozambique.

The Aim-, ASX- and JSE-listed coal-miner would continue to load further trains to use the maximum available stockpile at the terminal of about 80 000 t, it said in a statement to shareholders.

CoAL expected the shipping programme to get under way in the last quarter of this year.

“Reaching this major milestone marks the transition from an exploration and development company into a mining company. The system is now in place to facilitate the ramp-up of production once mining of the export quality thermal coal commences,” CoAL MD Simon Farrell commented.

The mining of export quality thermal coal would start by November, at the earliest, or by the first quarter of next year, at the latest, he added.

In July, the company had reported that midvolatile lean coal production had reached an average rate of 30 000-t/m run-of-mine, while access was being established into the export thermal coal resource.

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