An Australian company has been granted a licence to mine coal over an area to the west and south of Canonbie.

New Age Exploration of Melbourne, which was given the licence by the UK Coal Authority, will mine an area of 67.5 square kilometres in part of the Canonbie coalfield which was discovered by the National Coal Board in the 1950s.

The 10km by 7km coalfield, named Lochinvar, is NAE’s first coal acquisition outside of Colombia where it owns a portfolio of coking and thermal coal assets.

There is a potential for 330m to 410m tonnes of coal.

The licence is conditional on the granting of planning and development consents before production starts.

There are many seams with an expected average thickness of two metres. They are expected to start at depths of 100 metres from the surface.

Access agreements are in place with two landowners. Depending on customer requirements, the coal could be delivered directly to UK steel mills by rail.

The licence cost GBP 12,500.

Mr Gary Fietz, NAE managing director, said: “The granting of the licence marks a major milestone for NAE. Based on historic drilling and seismic data, we are very excited about the potential. The concealed nature of the deposit and the timing of its discovery and exploration during a long period of the wholesale decline in the UK coal industry are good indicators as to why Lochinvar has remained unexploited until now. We plan to rapidly progress evaluation and development of a significant underground mining project to exploit the shallow coking coal exploration target.”

Source - .newsandstar.co.uk

(www.coalguru.com)