PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Coal developer Atrum Coal on Wednesday announced that its subsidiary Kuro Coal had secured 13 additional contiguous coal licence applications in the Panorama area, some 20 km west of its own Groundhog project, in British Columbia.
The newly secured licence applications were contiguous with the two granted coal licences that were the subject of a joint venture (JV) between Atrum and Kuro, which would see the two companies develop the Panorama project.
It was expected that the new tenure would fall under the proposed JV, which was expected to include a retained equity interest for Atrum in the Panorama project, a co-marketing arrangement and an infrastructure participation arrangement between the JV partners.
Atrum executive director Russell Moran said on Wednesday that with Kuro now securing a dominant exploration footprint in the Panorama region, the two companies were hopeful that a maiden exploration programme could deliver new value opportunities for both companies.
The new tenure added a further 18 375 ha of exploration ground to the existing 850 ha.
Kuro was currently preparing a notice of work for the new ground and was hoping to lodge this along with an application to convert to coal licence status in an effort to fast-track exploration.
A maiden drill programme was also being designed in the hopes of starting exploration later this year.