10 January
2018
Altona Energy
Plc
(“Altona” or “the Company”)
Westfield Coal
Report
The Board of Altona (AIM: ANR) is pleased to update shareholders
with the following information regarding the recently commissioned
coal study focused on its Westfield tenement (EL 5676):
-
A seam of between 3-6m thickness
has been confirmed
-
Groundwater level only 10m above
the seam in places
-
Seam has as little as 80m of
coverage in places
Westfield is estimated to contain approximately 800m tonnes of coal in total (non-JORC
compliant).
The report was conducted by Runge Pincock Minarco Global (“RPM”)
who are a specialist professional mining consultant with previous
history with the Arckaringa Exploration Licences. RPM was engaged
by WSP Australia Pty Ltd (“WSP”), the Company’s mining
consultant.
The study confirmed the existence of two coal seams in the
tenement, the thicker of the two, the upper seam, being known as
the Willoughby Seam. This seam is considered to be between
3-6m in depth and running northeast
to southwest within the Westfield tenement. At its shallowest, it
lies at a depth of approximately 80m
(at the most southerly end currently explored) and increases in
depth to 215m at the northern end,
where the seam has been found to be at its thickest. The seam is
believed to continue running southwest, beyond the edge of the
tenement, but no exploration has been conducted in this area to
date.
The coal is believed to be “less wet”, in that it doesn’t have
significant groundwater issues, a key criteria for this report, and
the Board is of the opinion, based on these findings, that it could
be de-watered sufficiently to permit either open cut mining or
‘longwall’ mining (an underground method using a single horizontal
shaft along the coal face). Previous reports on the Westfield
tenement have focused on underground mining operations in the
northeast quadrant where the coal was considered too deep for
viable open cut mining; however, with the coal price currently
around US$100 per tonne, the board
believes an open cut mining operation may be viable for parts of
the Willoughby seam in the southwest quadrant, should a suitable
resource base be established.
The historical data for Westfield is fairly comprehensive in the
northeast quadrant of the tenement, but little exploration has been
done to date in the southwest area where the Company is now
focused.
The groundwater level in the upper-most area of the southwest
quadrant of Westfield, has been found to sit only 10m above the seam and the expectation,
extrapolated from the modelling of the water table further
southwest in the tenement, shows it has the potential to be deeper
still, to the extent that, should the Willoughby seam persist at an
80m depth, it may sit above the water
table in the most south westerly portion of the tenement.
The Board is encouraged by these findings and will meet with WSP
in mid-January, in Adelaide, to
determine the following:
-
Identify drilling targets by conducting either aerial gravity
and/or magnetic, or terrestrial seismic surveys – which will
accurately define the thickness of the Willoughby Seam and confirm
the existence of viable coal in other areas of Westfield.
-
An appropriate mining method and to develop indicative capital
and operational costs
-
Assess which technologies have the potential to be economically
viable based on the results of the tests to date (i.e. the assumed
depth of top of coal in the Willoughby Seam and the properties of
the coal already tested, including that in other areas of
Westfield)
The Company expects to issue a more detailed timetable in the
coming weeks.
Nick Lyth, CEO of Altona,
commented, “I am delighted that we have identified an area
within our tenements that appears to contain significant quantities
of coal at an 80m depth with
manageable groundwater. Our next step is to develop a detailed
exploration strategy to continue to prove up the resource and
de-risk this exciting opportunity.
“This represents a major step forward for Altona in delivering
value to its shareholders.”
This announcement contains inside information for the purposes
of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) 596/2014.
-ends-
For further information, please visit www.altonaenergy.com or
contact:
|
|
Leander (Financial
PR)
Christian Taylor- Wilkinson |
+44 (0)7795 168
157 |
Northland Capital
Partners Ltd (Nomad and Broker)
Matthew Johnson / Gerry Beaney (Corporate Finance)
John Howes (Corporate Broking)
|
+44 (0)20 3861
6625 |
About Altona
Altona is listed on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM
market. Its principal focus is on the evaluation and
development of the Company’s flagship Arckaringa Project to exploit
the significant coal resources contained in three exploration
licences covering 2,500 sq. kms in the northern portion of the
Permian Arckaringa Basin in South Australia. The Project is
designed to produce either coal or syngas products for the
Australian market and export from an historic resource exceeding
7.8 billion tonnes of coal (1.3 billion tonnes historic JORC (2004)
compliant).