Yellow Jacket Drilling Completed and 'Karura' Target Identified in Eastern Galilee Basin
Sydney, Dec 6, 2012 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Cuesta Coal Limited (
ASX:CQC) is pleased to announce that it has completed its 2012 exploration activities at the company's 100% owned Yellow Jacket Project (EPC 1802) in the Eastern Galilee Basin, Queensland.
Cuesta has also identified a new target area, "Karura", at its 90% owned EPC 1957, also at the company's Eastern Galilee Project which adjoins EPC 1802 where the Yellow Jacket Project is located.
The Eastern Galilee Project covers a total area of approximately 4,000km2 with two granted tenements, five tenement applications, including two applications under a $3 million joint venture with QCI (Galilee) Pty Ltd.
Work Completed
Since the commencement of drilling, on August 27th 2012, Cuesta has drilled a total of 23 open PCD holes and 5 partially cored holes totalling 4,229m for the 2012 drilling campaign, with all holes geophysically logged. All of the drill holes intersected coal in the target area (See figure 1 and Table 1).
The partially cored holes (Figure 2) encountered coal seams as expected, with a physical appearance of the coal similar to that of the lower seams in the Betts Creek Beds Coal Measures, this will be verified by coal analysis.
Cuesta is pleased to report it drilled one fully cored hole to allow testing for a positive identification ofthe age of the Yellow Jacket coal occurrence, allowing correlation with the traditional Galilee Basin.
Testing will include petrology, palynology and stratigraphic studies.
As previously announced, step out scout drilling of 3km was completed to the east of the most eastern drill traverse. Drilling was aiming to identify if the coal measures continue to occur, and encouragingly, drilling encountered the same coal seams. This provides significant exploration upside potential to the Yellow Jacket Project. The target area has been defined inside of the most easterly drill hole pending additional drilling being completed in 2013.
Upcoming Work
A geological model of the drill data will be completed over the coming months with a target completion date of March 2013.
Coal samples from the partially cored holes are being transported to the laboratory for analysis and input into the geological model for the maiden resource calculation.
Karura Target Area (EPC 1957)
In conjunction with the exploration activities in Yellow Jacket, a detailed desktop review of Cuesta's 90% owned EPC 1957 has confirmed a target area of up to 50km2 is present immediately south of the proposed rail corridor for Adani's Carmichael Project.
Historical regional seismic lines have been investigated and they indicate syncline structures present in both Yellow Jacket and Karura that have the potential to preserve the Permian coal measures of the Betts Creek Beds east of the known sub crop. This has been proven in Yellow Jacket through the company's drilling activities in 2011 and 2012.
The syncline structure in Yellow Jacket match the gravity survey conducted earlier this year. There are very similar geological correlations in the Karura Target area as there is in the Yellow Jacket Project, which warrant further exploration to verify the presence of coal. It is estimated that a thirteen hole scout drilling campaign can test the presence of coal measures in the Karura Project area, indicated in Figure 3.
Cuesta Coal Managing Director, Mr Matthew Crawford commented: "The Eastern Galilee Project is shaping up to be a project of significant scale for Cuesta, and our exploration efforts to date cover only around 30% of the target area at Yellow Jacket.
"The Yellow Jacket Project has consistently delivered very encouraging results and we have every confidence of the project's potential. With an initial exploration target of 200-1,000Mt, we are excited at the prospect of delivering a maiden resource estimate by the end of Q1 in 2013.
"We are also very encouraged by the new Karura target area which lies in close proximity to Adani's Carmichael Project and its proposed rail corridor. Karura possesses very similar geological characteristics to Yellow Jacket which gives us further encouragement.
"The completion of our drilling activities in the region will enable the planning of infill drilling and further resource extension drilling for 2013. We look forward to updating shareholders on our progress in the Eastern Galilee and our other projects as 2013 unfolds."
View the complete Cuesta Coal announcement including Tables & Figures at the link below:
http://media.abnnewswire.net/media/en/docs/ASX-CQC-710976.pdf
Contact
Cuesta Coal Limited
T: +61-2-9284-5900
F: +61-2-9284-5999
E: info@cuestacoal.com.au
WWW: www.cuestacoal.com.au
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