PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Coal developer Guildford Coal has been given the go-ahead from the Mineral Resources Authority of Mongolia to increase its mining capacity from 1.5-million tonnes a year in 2015, to 2-million tonnes a year by 2016.
Guildford group MD Peter Kane said on Thursday that the approval allowed the company to ramp up production from its Baruun Noyon Uul (BNU) mine beyond the recently announced targeted production figures for 2015, if it made economic sense to do so.
“This is great news for the company,” Kane added.
Previously known as the North pit, BNU forms part of Guildford’s South Gobi project, and has a coal resource of 70.4-million tonnes, which includes an indicated resource of 39.7-million tonnes. The mine was expected to deliver about 1.19-million tonnes of coal between December 2014 and 2015.
Meanwhile, Guildford on Thursday also announced that testing of the second trial batch of coal from the BNU mine had confirmed that the project’s coal could be washed to produce a low-ash premium quality hard coking coal with low sulphur.
The company said that the second trial wash process had allowed Guildford the opportunity to further advance long-term offtake discussions with multiple end-users.
Guildford recently became the takeover target of Singapore-listed Sino Construction, with Sino offering one of its own shares for every 4.5 Guildford shares held.
The takeover followed on from an August transaction, when the two companies reached a $25-million sales agreement under which Sino Construction would acquire Guildford’s Queensland coal assets. The assets would include the Clyde Park project, as well as the Pentland, Springsure, Hughenden Sunrise, Monto, Sierra and Kolan projects.