PERTH (miningweekly.com) – South Africa-focused coal miner Universal Coal has been given clearance to start recommissioning work of its New Clydesdale colliery (NCC) after the transfer of ownership for the project was approved.
Universal Coal in February last year acquired the NCC from South African coal major Exxaro Resources, which placed the operation in care and maintenance at the end of 2013.
With the transfer of the mining right now approved, Universal would be allowed to recommission the project.
“We have transitioned from an explorer to a 2.8-million-tonne-a-year run-of-mine (RoM) coal producer in only four years. With the commissioning of NCC, we anticipate that we will be able to double our output and our earnings by the fourth quarter of 2016,” said Universal CEO Tony Weber.
He noted that with the development of NCC, Universal was well on its way to meeting its strategic objective of becoming a midtier, lower quartile, multi-mine, multi-product producer.
Universal in June secured R525-million from Investec Bank to complete the development of the NCC.
The first phase of the NCC would involve the development of an opencast operation at the Roodekop deposit, with the recommissioning of the NCC processing facilities to meet the demand of the initial tonnage throughput.
At full capacity, the project would produce two-million tonnes a year of RoM coal for domestic use. Universal was currently negotiating a long-term sales agreement with power and metallurgical offtake partners.
The NCC had a reserve of 40.5-million tonnes, and was expected to have a mine life of more than 20 years.