South Africa's Wescoal said that it was awarded a prospecting right over parts of Vlaklaagte a farm located in the country's coal rich Witbank area.

Wescoal which focuses on the mining, buying, selling and processing of coal, said Vlaklaagte has an inferred resource of 20.1 million tonnes of coal.

Vlaklaagte lies close to Anglo Coal's Greenside colliery and Xstrata Coal's Tweefontein colliery.

Mr Andre Boje CEO of Wescoal in a statement said that "Being awarded the new order prospecting right is another step in Wescoal's strategy to further develop the coal mining segment of our business and increase our resource base.”

The company said further exploratory drilling will start in 2011, after which an application for a mining right will be submitted to the Department of Mineral Resources.

Wescoal said the new prospecting right brings the total resource under prospecting rights held by the company to an estimated 97.2 million tonnes.

(Sourced from Reuters)