Projects

MetroCoal holds extensive coal exploration tenements in the Surat Basin covering approximately 4,000km². These tenements are down dip of well known resources including Wandoan, Elimatta, Cameby Downs and Worri.

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Information from past exploration programs confirms that the coal seams extend into MetroCoal's tenements and the Company has already completed two of their own exploratory drilling programs.

The first program was undertaken in 2008 and comprised seven widely spaced holes over approximately 50 kilometres of strike in the northern tenements.

The second was focused within the Juandah Project area (MDLA 406) and established an initial JORC Code compliant resource of 172 million tonnes. Geological information gathered in these programs together with historic public domain data has given MetroCoal a sound understanding of the geological environment and relevant seam structure in the MetroCoal tenements.

Based on the geological information from the historic drilling programs and its own drilling results the company expects to identify a coal resource of at least 2.5 billion tonnes with a JORC Code classification of "inferred" or better, within the next two years.

Expert geological advice confirms that the Macalister Upper Seam is continuous over most of MetroCoal’s tenements with seam thickness expected to be between 2.5metres and 4.5metres.

This seam thickness is ideal for modern high productivity bord and pillar and longwall mining. Extensive areas where the Macalister Upper, Middle and Lower seams coalesce are also expected. In these areas the composite seam thickness may be as much as 12metres thick presenting very attractive mining targets. The bulk of the resource will be suited to conventional underground mining. Some areas of opencast mineable coal are expected along the northern and eastern boundaries of the EPCs.

World demand for energy both as thermal coal and liquid fuels is growing and is expected to continue to grow into the foreseeable future. The coal in the Surat Basin is ideally suited to producing high quality export thermal product and also to provide the feedstock for an alternative energy source such as UCG.

MetroCoal's core strategy is therefore to establish a coal resource of between 2.5 and 3.5 billion tonnes within its existing tenements. The tenements have the potential for a much greater tonnage but this initial resource will provide the base from which to establish an export thermal coal capacity from conventional underground and opencast mining operations. .

	Basin	Project	Tenement	Name	Sub Blocks	Area (km²)
1	Moreton	Ipswich	EPC 1152	Lockyer Valley	150	456
2	Surat	Injune	EPC 1159	Injune Creek	237	732.1
3	Surat	Surat	EPC 1164	Wandoan West	215	662.4
4	Surat	Surat	EPC 1165	Columboola	294	901.9
5	Surat	Surat	EPC 1166	Dalby West	97	296.1
6	Surat	Surat	EPC 1167	Roma North	289	890.2
7	Surat	Surat	EPC 1251	Wandoan West 2	19	58.5
8	Surat	Surat	EPC (A) 1609	Wandoan West 3	18	55.4
9	Surat	Surat	MDLA 406	Juandah	-	49.9
10	Surat	Surat	MDLA 417	Elle	-	18.4
11	Surat	Surat	MDLA 418	Kay	-	18.4
12	Surat	Surat	MDLA 419	Jay	-	42.5
13	Ipswich	Ipswich	EPC 1501	Dugandan	20	60.8
14	Galilee	Galilee	EPC (A) 1640	Pentland South	114	340