49 North Resources Inc has announced that its JV partner Westcore Energy Limited announced the upcoming launch of its major winter drilling campaign on its FNR JV coal project located near The Pas in Manitoba.

The FNR JV drill program is planned for 15-20 holes and will be two fold in its objectives. First, to complete the delineation drilling on the Quasar Main and Quasar Satellite coal deposits in order that they may be incorporated into a NI 43-101 resource report and second, to drill a large new target that has similar geophysical characteristics to deposits on Westcore's Black Diamond properties. Westcore as operator anticipates providing updates on a regular basis in the upcoming weeks, which will be news released as they are received. Highlights from the 2011 drill program on the FNR JV project can be found in Westcore's news release of March 30th 2011.

49 North looks forward to this year's winter drilling campaign to continue validating and expanding this coal project as it has large size potential in terms of both thickness and lateral extent. The project consists of 5 coal permits covering a large area of western Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan, comprising approximately 10,273 hectares in aggregate. 49 North entered into a joint venture agreement with Westcore in 2010 to explore these properties.

Westcore has collected a 500 kilogram bulk sample currently being tested by Quantex Energy Limited, a Calgary based company developing a coal to liquefaction process for extracting synthetic crude and high value carbon products from coal in an ultra clean and environmentally friendly manner.