PERTH (miningweekly.com) - ASX-listed coal hopeful Atrum Coal has increased the Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant resource at its flagship Groundhog project, in Canada, by 113% to 338-million tons.
“With a major resource upgrade still to come over the next few months, the coal endowment at Groundhog is shaping up to be significantly larger than first thought, potentially the largest of its kind,” said CEO Lyle Hobbs on Wednesday.
Of the 338-million-ton resource, some 106.9-million tons has been classified as indicated, with a further 230.9-million tons classified as inferred.
Some 85.3-million tons of the resource occur between the 0 m and 50 m mark, making the project amenable to opencut mining, with 96% of the total resource occurring between 0 m and 200 m.
Atrum was currently updating the resource model at Groundhog to include the 2012 drilling programme, and this had also been expanded to include the newly acquired coal lease applications and a revision to global coal resources, which was expected by March this year.