Cline chief operating officer and executive vice president Dennis Mraz told the Trinidad Times Independent local newspaper it had already hired about 60 management staff from its labor supplier TK Mining.

In early January the complex near Trinidad received the final regulatory approvals it needed to allow it to extract from the Blue seam via room and pillar mining.

It had previously been given the go-ahead for Allen seam mining.

Cline hopes to have 500 on its crew roster by the time it reaches full production with the company in January saying it hoped to get to that point during the first half of this year as it worked towards 2.5 million tons of saleable metallurgical coal for whole-year 2012.

It is eyeing 3 million tons per annum going forward.

Mraz told the paper that the future of the operation, which will ship its output to overseas steelmakers, was looking good.

“We want to make the point that we’re here to stay,” he said.

“We have found more coal than we expected and it’s of a higher quality than we first thought.

“We hope to get to the point where we’re shipping three million tons per year.”

He confirmed that the mining plan included the addition of another unit on the property in the near future as it continued to develop its existing mines but an ILN request for comment about that expansion and current New Elk growth was not immediately returned.

While coal output is currently being trucked to a rail loadout, Mraz told the Times Independent that it was negotiating with railroad shipper Burlington Northern and Santa Fe to use an existing bed to haul the coal from the mine to the northwest town of Jansen, where it departed for Texas as it headed to international customers via freighter.

New Elk, 100% owned by Cline, is estimated to contain 191.2Mt measured and 197.3Mt indicated in-place low-sulfur, high-volatile, B bituminous coking coal.

These figures exclude in-seam partings and include only coal exceeding 3 feet in thickness.

Cline has commissioned an independent National Instrument 43-101 compliant engineering report for the expansion of the complex from the present first phase mine plan of 3Mtpa saleable to a projected 7.2Mtpa saleable that includes a feasibility study on the full expanded mine.

This expansion is set to involve the installation of a longwall operation in addition to the present room and pillar extraction.

In preparation for the engineering report and feasibility study, 12 exploration holes were drilled in 2011 in addition to 16 holes drilled in 2010.

The engineering report and feasibility study are expected to be turned over to Cline for review during the first half of this year.