Drilling recommences at Katingan Ria coal project
Tuesday, October 9 2012 - 01:54 AM WIB
Australia-listed Realm Resources Ltd said on Tuesday that drilling program at its Katingan Ria coal project in Central Kalimantan has recommenced.
The company said that the program was aimed at increasing the size of the JORC compliant coal resource and allow for conversion of some of this resource to a JORC compliant reserves estimate and the production of a bankable feasibility study.
In addition, the company is conducting additional engineering studies and optimization work aimed at reducing FOB cash costs and enhancing the project?s economics.
The exploration program commenced on September 17 with one medium size track mounted drill rig with HQ size capability mobilized to site, by Indonesian drilling firm Arbico.
The drilling has initially focused on the South Eastern quadrant of the project area, which was identified in the recently completed project study as the best potential mining start-up area given the low strip ratios and favorable coal quality results, Realm Resources said in a statement, while adding the following additional details.
As of October 3, 554 meters of drilling had been completed with 467 meters of chip and 87 meters of HQ size core.
A total of 10 holes have been drilled out of the total 16 planned sites, being 5 cores and 5 chip holes. All holes have been geophysically logged.
Results to date support the original model predictions with one exception. The average Main Seam borehole thickness of 4.90m is thicker than the 4.34m average in previous Indicated Resource model. The depths to the Main Seam have varied slightly from the predictions, however this will allow the structural model to be further enhanced moving forward.
The first batch of coal quality samples have been forwarded to the accredited laboratory in Banjarmarsin for testing to build on the coal quality database.
With solid progress to date of this latest field program, the company anticipates completion of the bankable feasibility study before year-end.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak