Listed Mining Companies
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JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources has granted JSE-listed Miranda Minerals mining rights for its Burnside coal project, in KwaZulu-Natal.
The Burnside project, which had an indicated resource of 18,9-million tons and an inferred resource of 16,6-million tons, stretched over 4 540 ha.
Miranda Coal intended on drilling a further ten boreholes in 2010, which would suffice to upgrade its resource status to measured status, the company reported on Monday.
A prefeasibility study would be commissioned in 2010 to confirm management’s internal project valuation of R303-million attributable to Miranda Coal.
Miranda Coal’s 60% owned subsidiary Street Spirit Trading planned to submit a scoping study for the project by mid-November, while an environmental-impact assessment and an environmental management programme would be completed by April 2010.
The Burnside colliery was expected to start producing by mid-2011 with 25% of the resource expected to be exploitable by using opencast mining techniques.
“Burnside is contiguous to Uithoek and is the third and largest of Miranda Coal’s KZN projects to apply for a coal-mining right. At Sesikhona, we are expecting to make an announcement on our chosen mining contractor and offtake agreement before year-end and at Uithoek, we are expecting the mining right to be granted by early 2010. We then plan to place the colliery into production in the second half of 2010,” Miranda CEO Ron Nel said in a statement.
The coal-miner was planning on bringing one mine a year into production, with Sesikhona to start producing this year, Uithoek in 2010 and Burnside in 2011.
