Stockpiles Anthracite at Groundhog North
Perth, Aug 12, 2014 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Atrum Coal NL ("Atrum" or the "Company") (
ASX:ATU) (ATRCF:OTCMKTS) is pleased to announce it has stockpiled high grade anthracite at the Company's flagship JORC 1.57 billion tonne Groundhog Anthracite Project ("Groundhog"), located in British Columbia, Canada.
VP Operations, Mr Ben Smith commented:
"We have extracted near-surface anthracite around the proposed mine portal at Groundhog North.
Large samples have been transported to the laboratory for bulk wash and quality testing and to the port of Stewart for a trial run of the ship loader."
FIRST HIGH GRADE ANTHRACITE STOCKPILE
The Company recently mobilised heavy equipment to the staging platform at Groundhog North, including an articulated dump truck, an excavator and a dozer. This equipment was used to complete various site preparation activities as part of the portal and pre-production exploration program.
Anthracite located in an S80 seam outcrop close to diamond drill hole DH14-06 has been extracted for customer sampling, wash testing and ship loader trials at the Port of Stewart.
Due to the homogenous nature of the Groundhog deposit, particularly in respect of 'coal rank', the S80 seam has comparable anthracite qualities to the S70 and S40 seam and provides an ideal source of Groundhog anthracite for customer testing.
The S80 seam measured 4.7m at 3.3m depth and represents potential upside for the PFS As previously noted, the PFS is currently being updated to include the S80 and the S60 seams, as well as the latest information from in-fill drilling on the S70 and S40 seams.
REGIONAL DRILLING
The Company has completed a regional exploration program following granting of new coal licence applications at Groundhog. The relatively small program was designed to test whether or not the current global resource envelope could be extended beyond the existing JORC resource model. Initial results confirm that the resource envelope continues laterally to other Atrum tenure, not included in the current resource model.
The regional drill rig is consistently intersecting between 20m and 30m of cumulative drilled anthracite thickness outside the current resource envelope, which is consistent with drilled thickness results experienced within the current resource envelope, suggesting a material recalibration of JORC resources may be possible.
While the Company's primary focus is on near term production at Groundhog North, these regional exploration results support Atrum's vision for a mulit-mine opportunity at Groundhog and the Company will seek to revise the global JORC compliant resource.
To view all figures and diagrams, please visit:
http://media.abnnewswire.net/media/en/docs/ASX-ATU-687539.pdf
About Atrum Coal Limited
Atrum Coal Limited (ASX:ATU) is a metallurgical coal developer. The Company flagship asset is the 100%-owned Elan Hard Coking Coal Project in southern Alberta, Canada. Elan hosts large-scale, shallow, thick, hard coking coal (HCC) deposits with a current JORC Resource Estimate of 298 Mt (70 Mt Indicated and 228 Mt Inferred). Comprehensive quality testing of Elan South coal on samples from the 2018 exploration program, combined with review of substantial historical testwork data for the broader Elan Project, has confirmed Tier 1 HCC quality.
The initial focus for development is the Elan South area, which is located approximately 13 km from an existing rail line with significant excess capacity, providing direct rail access to export terminals in Vancouver and Prince Rupert. Elan South shares its southern boundary with Riversdale Resources Grassy Mountain Project, which is in the final permitting stage for a 4.5 Mtpa open-cut HCC operation. Around 30km to the west, Teck Resources operates five mines (the Elk Valley complex) producing approximately 25 Mtpa of premium HCC for the seaborne market.
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