London (Platts)--30Jan2013/441 am EST/941 GMT
Universal Coal announced Tuesday it has increased its ownership in the Berenice coking coal and Roodekop thermal coal projects in South Africa. The Australia-listed company said in a statement that, with second phase of drilling completed at Berenice -- which it funded -- it has fulfilled its automatic earn-in agreement, allowing it to raise its stake from 40% to 50%. Universal said it has also unlocked a further exclusive option to acquire another 24% in Berenice. The company did not give details on who owns the rest of the project. Berenice, which has not yet started production, has a historical JORC-compliant coking coal resource of 1.324 billion gross mt in-situ of coal. Article continues below...Request a free trial of: International Coal ReportInternational Coal Report and its daily companion, Coal Trader International, deliver expert and respected price assessments for coal trading in the Atlantic and Pacific markets including price assessments for European CIF ARA, FOB Newcastle, Richards Bay and Indonesia.
Universal Coal announced Tuesday it has increased its ownership in the Berenice coking coal and Roodekop thermal coal projects in South Africa. The Australia-listed company said in a statement that, with second phase of drilling completed at Berenice -- which it funded -- it has fulfilled its automatic earn-in agreement, allowing it to raise its stake from 40% to 50%. Universal said it has also unlocked a further exclusive option to acquire another 24% in Berenice. The company did not give details on who owns the rest of the project. Berenice, which has not yet started production, has a historical JORC-compliant coking coal resource of 1.324 billion gross mt in-situ of coal.
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International Coal Report and its daily companion, Coal Trader International, deliver expert and respected price assessments for coal trading in the Atlantic and Pacific markets including price assessments for European CIF ARA, FOB Newcastle, Richards Bay and Indonesia.
An updated resource estimate by independent geological consulting firm GEMECS has been carried out and will be made available in February, Universal said. The project, and the company's sister coking coal project Cygnus, are located in the Soutpansberg coal field in South Africa's Limpopo province within 30 km of a railway line to Mozambique's Maputo port and South Africa's Richards Bay Coal Terminal. At the Roodekop thermal coal project, Universal said it achieved its 74% ownership by exercising an option it held for a cash consideration of Rand 5 million ($553,300). It did not give details on the other owners in the project. The project -- located in the Witbank coalfield in the Mpumalanga province -- has a JORC-compliant thermal coal resource of 84.4 million gross mt in-situ of coal. Universal owns two other thermal coal assets in the Witbank coal field, namely Brakfontain and Kangala.--Jacqueline Holman, jacqueline_holman@platts.com--Edited by Alisdair Bowles, alisdair_bowles@platts.com
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