Buller Coal Project
The highly prospective high quality hard coking coal Buller Coal project is Bathurst Resources’ flagship project.
During the December quarter 2010 Bathurst signed an agreement with L&M Coal Holdings to acquire the Buller project, through the acquisition of 100% of L&M Coal Limited.
The Buller project area comprises two permits that cover over 10,000 hectares of the Buller Coalfield. The permits largely surround state-owned, Solid Energy’s Stockton open cut mining operation.
Exploration expenditure on the permits since acquisition has established a Resource of 81.7 million tonnes. The majority of this resource is considered to be high quality hard coking coal used largely in the manufacture of steel.
It is the company's belief that an achievable exploration target across the Buller Project lies somewhere between 125 and 167 million tonnes. This target will be tested over the next few years with a $8 million exploration program.
Current reserves total 17.3 million tonnes (ROM) and comprises material from the Escarpement, Whareatea West and Deep Creek blocks.
The Company is currently producing from the Cascade mine at an annual rate of approximately 100,000 tonnes per annum. Approximately 50% of this will be sold domestically with the balance being exported. In early 2012 it expectes to commence development of the fully permitted Coalbrookdale underground. This will be at an initial rate of 150,000 tonnes per annum, lifting to a rate of approximately 250,000 per annum by the end of 2012.
Once the Escarpment block has received all relevant permits, development of this block will lift the company's production profile to around 1.2 million tonnes per annum. Subject to permitting, Whareatea West is likely to be the next block developed in the South Buller project lifting production to just over 2 million tonnes per annum.
The North Buller region is currently the subject of a scoping study. It is the Company's long term plan to develop this area to a similar production rate as that in the South Buller area to lift total coal production to over 4 million tonnes per annum.
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