Vele
| Interest | 74% |
| Location | Limpopo Province |
| Area | 8,000 Ha |
| Resource | 352 million |
Overview
The group has rights to a 441 Mt resource with the Vele project on the Limpopo River, which was explored by Utah Mining in the 1970’s. It comprises three major coal seams with a total coal horizon of 25-30 metres. It is an open cast mine with a life of mine strip ratio of 5 bank cubic metres (BCM) of waste to 1 tonne of coal.
The Vele project in which Coal has a 74% interest is located in the Limpopo Province. This semi-soft coking coal project (formerly know as Thuli) is planned to commence production in 2009 with outputs of 1mtpa-1.5mtpa ramping up to 5mtpa of caking coal by 2012. The Vele resource update issued in June 2008 revealed that the Gross in Situ Coal resource has increased appreciably from a total of 352.98 Mt to 441.47 Mt and this is expected to increase as drilling continues on the edges of the known resource.
Current
A 65 borehole drilling program on the Vele coal project commenced in August 2007 and data collected in the terrain model completed earlier in the year will be used in the identification of the drilling targets.
Preliminary discussions with various infra-structure participants are underway to ascertain the export capacity of the coal mined. Management have received valuations from independent third parties mandated to assess the value of the surface rights comprising the Vele Coal Project. Preliminary consultations with the current surface rights owners on CoAL’s potential acquisition of these rights have been undertaken. CoAL will continue these discussions together with the drilling program during the 2008 financial year.
Future
At this stage the resource estimation covers approximately 80% of the potential area of the project. It is expected that the results of the outstanding boreholes and the bulk sample drilling program should have an advantageous effect on the overall yields. It should also be noted that additional drilling is taking place to increase the geological confidence.King Toni Mphephu Scholarship
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Application Form - King Toni Mphephu Scholarship 10 November 2008 – PDF – 95.3 kb |