PERTH (miningweekly.com) – South Africa-focused coal miner Universal Coal has announced a maiden reserve of 9.62-million tonnes at the Northern openpit area of the Brakfontein project, east of the Kangala mine, in Mpumalanga.
The Brakfontein mine is estimated to host a total Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant resource of 75.8-million tonnes.
Universal CEO Tony Weber said on Tuesday that the declaration of a maiden reserve at Brakfontein represented the next important milestone in the project’s development, and a significant step in Universal’s medium-term goal of bringing the asset to book.
“Following the recent granting of a mining right, Brakfontein only awaits the receipt of its water licence before proceeding to development. We will now focus our efforts on optimising the feasibility study, including investigating the case for using excess capacity at the nearby Kangala operation,” Weber said.
While a prefeasibility study on the project had been completed, Universal had not made any of the information contained in the study available.