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The Australia Securities Exchange-listed company said it signed a drilling contract with local Colombian contractor LT Geoperforaciones Y MinerÃa for three open-hole boreholes at La Miel.
The LTG contract will consist of drilling, site preparation and geological logging among other activities.
The main objective of the program is to confirm existence and thickness of coal seams at the tenement.
A drilling rig and support equipment is being mobilised to La Miel, with the aim of completing drilling on the first borehole by mid-June.
The last borehole is scheduled to be finished by early September.
NAE will fund the exploration program from its available cash.
“We are very excited to be commencing drilling at La Miel which marks an important step towards defining a JORC inferred resource and adding value to the project,” NAE managing director Gary Fietz said.
The La Miel project has an exploration target of 50-200 million tonnes.
A phase 2 drilling program at the tenement will include a further four cored and open-hole boreholes to provide samples for coal quality analysis, with the intention of defining a JORC inferred resource.
NAE has acquired a handful of thermal and coking coal projects in Colombia over the past twelve months.
The company aims to move from coal explorer to producer via the Terranova coking coal mine in Colombia’s Subachoque Valley.
The mine already produces 25,000 tonnes per annum but NAE plans to ramp it up to 365,000tpa by January 2013.
