Coal miner Churchill Mining Plc said that its total measured and indicated resources for the East Kutai Coal Project in Indonesia exceeded 1.3 billion tonnes and that the asset would yield substantial interest in the company from energy producers.

Churchill said it was confident that the majority of the inferred mineral resources, which is estimated with a low level of confidence, can be upgraded to indicated mineral resources that are estimated with a reasonable level of confidence.

However, given the extremely large measured and indicated resource, the company may consider leaving further exploration work on the inferred tonnes for a later stage.

The company said its 75% owned East Kutai project located in the Kutai Timur Province of East Kalimantan, was expected to result in a project with persuasive returns.

The project feasibility work is on schedule with about 80 percent of the engineering completed to date, and the feasibility study is still expected to be completed by the end of 2009.

(Sourced from Reuters)