Cockatoo Coal (ASX: COK) has upgraded the JORC Resources in all categories for the Bottle Tree deposit within the Taroom Coal Measures, which is part of the Surat Basin Projects in Queensland.
Coal resources at Bottle Tree increased by 9% to 35.2 million tonnes (Mt) from 32.5Mt previously announced, at a strip ratio of less than 10:1.
The Resource now comprises 29.5Mt of Indicated Resource and 5.7Mt of Inferred, representing an upgrade of 90% of the previously announced 32.5Mt Inferred Resource to the Indicated Resource category.
The Resource upgrade has boosted the potential for economic extraction through open cut mining. This in turn complements the growth in the company’s resource asset base at the Tin Hut Creek, Collingwood, Taroom and Woori projects.
The Woori and Tin Hut Creek projects comprise the Juandah Coal Measures. The Taroom and Collingwood projects and the Bottle Tree and Krugers prospects are located within the Taroom Coal Measures.
The Company's Surat Basin projects cover an area of about 4,000 square kilometres. The Juandah and Taroom Coal Measures of the Walloon Sub-Group both sub-crop within the Surat project area.
The continued expansion of Cockatoo’s coal resource base in the Surat Basin project areas provides potential for future development of multiple satellite operations with mining planned to commence coinciding with the new rail and port infrastructure slated for 2013/14.
Over 1192.3Mt of JORC thermal coal resources have now been delineated across the Surat Basin and Kingaroy projects.
On May 9 Cockatoo Coal entered into a bank guarantee facility with Macquarie Bank (ASX: MBL) for $50 million to support the development of the company's coal assets and associated infrastructure requirements.