JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Coal of Africa Limited (CoAL) on Friday reported that an optimisation study and the front-end engineering and design have been completed for its Makhado project.
The mine, in Limpopo, will unearth hard coking and thermal coal for export and domestic consumption. Initially, the operation will be an opencast mine, with potential for expansion to an underground operation in future years.
The work was completed by engineering and project delivery group DRA Projects South Africa and demonstrated a 31% reduction in upfront capital requirements to $280-million.
The triple-listed company continued with its project development programme, despite the project’s integrated water use licence being suspended in April – less than three months after it was granted.
Talks in this regard were ongoing, it stated.
Meanwhile, the miner also signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding with Qingdao Hengshun Zhongsheng Group with respect to a proposed equity investment in its Baobab Mining and Exploration subsidiary.
Baobab owns the mining right for the Makhado project.