PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Junior developer Guildford Coal has been granted a new mining licence in Mongolia, allowing the company to proceed with its coking coal expansion plans in the South Gobi region.
Guildford on Tuesday said the mining licence would be valid for 30 years, with the company able to extend up to two additional terms of 20 years each.
The mining licence aligned with the company’s expansion plans to produce two-million tonnes a year of coal by 2016, three-million tonnes a year by 2017 and then ramping up to sustainable output of five-million tonnes a year by 2020 through the expansion of existing operations and the development of satellite pits in existing licence areas.
The newly granted mining licence covers part of a previously granted and highly prospective exploration licence with an inferred resource of 15-million tonnes and an additional exploration target of between 26-million and 45-million tonnes.
The licence is adjacent to the existing Baruun Noyon Uul (BNU) mine, allowing for the use of already-installed infrastructure and allowing for a fast ramp-up.
Guildford was hoping to start mining at the newly awarded licence in 2016, with low strip-ratio coal targeted and incorporated into an already-approved mine plan to allow for mining on the KS North limb resource area of the BNU mine.