Perth (Platts)--3Aug2011/322 am EDT/722 GMT

Melbourne-based Tigers Realm Coal aims to become a "significant participant in the seaborne coking coal market" through the development of its Amaam project in Far Eastern Russia and its Landazuri project in Colombia, the company said Wednesday.

TRC is to float 75 million new shares priced at A$0.60/share on the Australian Securities Exchange later in August to raise A$45 million ($48.3 million), the company said in a prospectus filed to the ASX Wednesday.

"Tigers Realm Coal will use the proceeds of the offer to fund further drilling and work programs to progress the Amaam pre-feasibility study and the Landazuri feasibility study for stage one, however, additional funding will be required to complete these studies," the company said in the prospectus.

TRC's 80%-owned Amaam project has an inferred coal resource of 177 million mt and is located 30 km from a proposed deepwater port to be built by the Australian company near Beringovsky on Russia's Pacific coast.

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A proposed open-cut mine at the Amaam project has a production target for hard coking coal of 10 million mt/year by 2018, following its start-up in late 2016. The project's development cost is estimated at $1.4 billion.

TRC's 60%-owned Landazuri hard coking coal project is located in the Landazuri coal basin in central Colombia, and is 60 km from a railway running to Santa Marta port on the South American country's Atlantic coast.

Landazuri presently has an inferred coal resource of 21 million mt, which is forecast to increase to between 280 million mt and 470 million mt through further exploration.

An open-cut mine at Landazuri is due to start production in late 2013 at a rate of 500,000 mt/year, rising to 2 million mt/year by 2015 at total a capital cost of $178 million.

"Tigers Realm Coal will need to undertake and complete feasibility studies in order to establish a basis for any final investment decision in the projects," said the company in its share prospectus.

Tigers Realm Coal was incorporated in October 2010. Its 39% shareholder, Tiger Realm Minerals, is a Melbourne-based resources company with interests in gold, copper and coal that undertook earlier development work on the Amaam and Landazuri projects.

TRC's non-executive chairman Anthony Manini has 24 years' experience in the resources industry, including 14 years with Rio Tinto and 8 years with Oxiana, now Oz Minerals. Its managing director and chief executive Martin Grant was formerly chief development officer for BHP Billiton Energy Coal and vice-president for business development at Australia's largest coking coal producer, the BHP Billiton-Mitsubishi Alliance.

The offer opens August 8 and the shares are due to begin trading on the ASX August 23.

--Mike Cooper, michael_cooper@platts.com