Agritrade updates JORC Resource, Reserves

By Romel S. Gurky

Hong Kong-listed Agritrade Resources Limited recently released the updated Statement of Open Cut Coal Resources and Reserve of PT Senamas Energindo Mineral, its subsidiary, from previously released JORC compliant resources and reserves statement issued in May 2011.

The company stated that since the issuance of the JORC statement in May 2011, an infill drilling program and systemic coal sampling program have been undertaken.

"With these new exploration results, a new Minex geological model has built, therefore coal resources and reserves have been revised in the light of this additional exploration and new geological model," the company said.

PT SEM Coal Resources' JORC result, calculated by DMT Geosciences, are estimated to total 152.70 million tonnes, of which 86.61Mt are classed as Measured, 51.26Mt as Indicated with the balance of 14.83 Mt as Inferred. Resource estimates have been adjusted to exclude the estimated coal mined to date.

"During the data collection and verification stage of the project, DMT Geosciences was aware that a current, up-to-date life of mine (LOM) plan did not exist for the PT SEM deposit and so coal reserves could not be stated. Consequently, Agritrade requested DMT Geosciences to prepare the necessary LOM plan so that coal reserves could be reported," the company said.

An optimized economic pit shell and a mineable pit shell were also developed by DMT Geosciences and only Measured and Indicated Resources were used in order to calculate Reserves. Based on this approach, a total of 117.85 Mt of Open Cut Coal Reserves, at a cumulative stripping ratio of 5.51 bcm/t were estimated. Of these reserves, 83.38 Mt are classified as Proven Reserves and 34.47 Mt are classified as Probable Reserves, in which Coal Resources are inclusive of Coal Reserves.

Trial mining started at SEM on the 12th December 2009 and is still ongoing. Currently, there are three open pits at SEM. At the present time, only coal from Seam 09 is mined, which attains a maximum thickness of 11.58 m and an average thickness of 3.95 m, with average in situ coal quality summarized as follows: Average Total Moisture (TM) 42.3% as received (ar), Calorific Value (CV) 3,544 kcal/kg (ar), ash content 5.8% air dried basis (adb), and sulphur content 0.17% (adb).

From the mine coal is transported 41 km along a haul road to the port facility at Telang Baru on the Napu River, a tributary of the Barito River. At the Telang Baru port facility, the coal is loaded onto 8,000-12,000 ton barges which transport the coal down the Barito River to the Taboneo Anchorage off the coast.

Editing by Er Audy Zandri