Churchill eyes more coal project in Indonesia
Thursday, February 15 2007 - 04:23 PM WIB
The East Kutai project area covers approximately 399 square kilometres made up of two blocks and is situated 110 kilometres northwest from the main population centre of Sangatta.
Churchill will send two rigs to East Kutai, expected to be on site from approximately 21 February 2007, to begin a 10-15 hole, 1,000 metre verification drilling programme that has been designed to test outcrop targets identified in three previous field reconnaissance surveys, it said.
Work conducted by consulting group PT Rimeneco Geological and Mining Services in December 2006 and January 2007 has identified numerous outcrops of coal in the area, which range in thickness from two to seven metres, hosted in a sequence of Tertiary sediments cropping out in the area.
The verification programme will be concluded before the Company enters into formal purchase negotiations.
According to the company, the Regency of East Kutai?s coal prospectivity has been re-evaluated by several companies in recent times. "The catalyst for the renewed interest has been a new discovery called Pakar, made by a private Indonesian group, which sits approximately 55 kilometres south-west of Churchill?s ground. The Pakar project, as of December 2006, had a JORC compliant resource of 3.3 billion tonnes of thermal coal. The resource is believed to be open in a variety of directions and is still being drilled."
The two rigs being sent to East Kutai will come from Churchill?s Sendawar project (also in Kalimantan at West Kutai) where the company is exploring for high-grade thermal coal. To date the Company has drilled 30 of out the 64 holes planned for the second round drilling campaign.
Churchill maintains an active sourcing programme for coal exploration and mining opportunities both in Indonesia and elsewhere and will continue to examine more projects throughout 2007, it said.(alex)