The company was offered a special grant to prospect for coal bed methane excluding oil on 22 February. Technical director, Ndumo Mutsinya said: “With the assistance of our South African partner, LontohCoal we have already released US$2 million together for the initial stage of the project, which includes carrying out of an Environment Impact Assessment, Total Station Survey and Beckoning. We expect to start mining by the end of this year and during the first quarter of next year we hope production will be at full throttle. We are targeting at producing 100 000 tonnes per month in our first mine.
LontohCoal is a specialist mining exploration finance company with investments in coal, gold, iron ore, nickel and platinum. It plans to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange by November this year.
Liberation Mining’s Hangano concession covers a total of 16 545 hectares with coal reserve estimated to be 1.5 billion tonnes with a life span of between 15 to 20 years of open cast mining.
“We are going to put US$5 million into upgrading of railways facilities at Dete siding to ensure efficient transportation of the mineral. There are also roads that are going to be spruced before we start mining,” Mutsinya added.
88 percent of the coal is said to be thermal coal, and 12 per cent will be coking coal.
Post published in: Economy