Continuing its penchant for changing names, the Perth-based company was previously known as Xenolith Resources and decided to change the moniker of its flagship Hinton project to Vista after expanding the project area.

In mid-June, Coalspur picked up six more leases which link up to its Hinton-based project in Alberta for $C90 million, adding 438 million tonnes of resources and a mining permit to the mix.

Coalspur’s resources are more than 905Mt for its revamped Vista project with 812.6Mt in either the measured or indicated category.

“The company is now at a very exciting stage of its development,” Coalspur managing director and chief executive Gene Wusaty said.

“The scoping study completed earlier this year has already shown that this project can be mined with low operating costs.

“The company now has the potential to develop one of the largest export thermal coal mines in North America.

“With the combined coal leases, the project contains a coal structure of over 20 kilometres of continuous gently dipping strike length with a measured and indicated coal resource of over 810 million tonnes.

“We expect the PFS will provide very encouraging results when the substantial mining synergies, increased production rate and longer mine life are built into the mining plan.”

Consultancy and Tetra Tech subsidiary Wardrop, which undertook the previous scoping study for the project, will conduct the PFS which is due for completion in the December quarter.

Coalspur was previously planning a 7.4 million tonne per annum run-of-mine thermal coal operation for its open cut Hinton project, exporting 4Mtpa saleable coal over a minimum mine life of 14 years.