The notice of work approval allows the Vancouver-based miner to initiate an extensive feasibility-level drill campaign at the site which will include 5600m of diamond drilling, 3335m of rotary drilling and a “significant” large-diameter drill program.
Work at Carbon Creek is focused on a third-quarter completion of a NI43-101 technical report with sufficient detail to inform mine design specifications, productions schedule, a transportation study and construction of various surface facilities.
“We are currently mid-way through our prefeasibility study which will bring us to a series of go-forward mine and transport decisions,” Cardero president and chief executive Michael Hunter said.
“The drill permit announced today is the last essential milestone allowing Cardero to complete a full feasibility study and submit a mine permit application in 2013.”
Carbon Creek is located in the Peace River coalfield of the province and has a resource estimate of 167 million tonnes of coal, measured and indicated.
The current resource assessment for the asset lists 137Mt of coal as mineable.
Analysis presented by the company last December estimated a post-tax undiscounted cashflow of $US3.1 billion for the project and a production potential of 2.9Mt of saleable metallurgical coal per annum.
