Strike upgrades Berau Coal Project resource

Australian firm Strike Resources Limited on Friday announced the increase of JORC-compliant coal resource at its Berau Coal Project to 27.7 million tonnes (MT) from previously reported 20.8 MT.

Of the 27.7MT resource, 11MT is in the Measured category 11.1 MT in Indicated category and 5.6MT in the Inferred category, the company said.

?This last round of drilling has given us resource we need to be comfortable in targeting 3MTPA mine with life of 7-9 years. We have now completed our exploratory drilling and are now waiting upon government approvals and the implementation of the new Mining Regulations to enable us to move to construction phase,? Chairman John Stephenson said.

The mineralization upon which the current JORC Resource is based is contained within area of around 1,000 hectares out total concession area of 5,000 hectares.

Strike has recently completed feasibility study which focused on the development of open cut mining operations with production scaling up to 1.5MTPA to peak production 3MTPA. The company said in June 2009 that commercial operations could be achieved in the second half of 2010. (alex)