Orpheus starts drilling program at E. Kalimantan coal project
Tuesday, June 25 2013 - 03:06 AM WIB
ASX-listed miner Orpheus Energy Limited said it has commenced an exploration drilling program at its 51 percent owned Block 4 (B4) coal project in East Kalimantan.
The company said in a statement that drilling commenced Tuesday on the first of a 10-13 drill-hole program to a nominal depth of 100 meters. It is anticipated that this drilling program will take approximately four weeks to complete and is aimed at achieving an initial JORC compliant resource at B4.
Covering an area of 3,126 Ha, B4 is one of two contiguous concessions, which are 51 percent owned by Orpheus. The other concession Block 3 is located north of B4. As previously announced, the total exploration target for both concessions is 5 -10Mt. The B4 concession is located ~125km north-west of the closest barge-loading facility, and is directly accessible by log hauling road.
Initial work completed in 2007 reported the presence of multiple high calorific coal seams that provided a target for further exploration. This preliminary work was undertaken by an Orpheus field team in July 2011 and confirmed the existence of multiple coal seams with sample assays taken including 8095, 8055 and 7270 kcal/kg (adb).
Prior to the Orpheus field work, the concession was also subject to historical geological mapping, and reported a high quality coal sample in 2007 featuring low ash (1.9% adb), low total moisture (6.5% ar), and an energy content of 7253 Kcal/kg.
In early April 2013, Orpheus sent a field party into the B4 concession area to carry out coal seam outcrop geological mapping (and sampling), following the sub crop. In addition, the team identified drill targets to test the seams at depth. Subsequently, 13 drill-hole site pads were prepared and spaced no more than 500m apart for the next stage of exploration in this B4 concession area.
?The recent exploration activities, and sample results at B4 have been encouraging, and we expect the current drilling program to confirm our belief that this prospect will add to our stable of near-term production coal assets,? said Executive Chairman Wayne Mitchell.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak