PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) has approved ASX-listed TerraCom’s $1 purchase of the Blair Athol coal mine, in Queensland.
TerraCom, which has a majority of non-Australian investors, said on Thursday that the FIRB approval was an important milestone in the acquisition of the Blair Athol project, and added to the recently secured $12-million funding to support commissioning plans to deliver first coal sales in December.
TerraCom recently completed an agreement with mining major Rio Tinto under which its subsidiary acquired the mine for $1. Under the agreement, TerraCom, a subsidiary of Orion Mining, will receive A$80-million from the mining giant to meet rehabilitation costs at the site.
TerraCom plans to initially start over 50 ha of site rehabilitation, while bringing the mine back into production, with production scheduled at a rate of around two-million tonnes a year of coal, with a target of recommissioning operations in the fourth quarter of 2016, and achieving coal sales by the end of the year.