Last year Aspire quickly set 330.7 million tonnes of maiden resources at the project and cashed-up Vancouver-based SouthGobi Energy Resources acquired a 19.9% stake in the explorer.
Aspire managing director David Paull said the exploration results came from “blind” step-out drilling in 2010.
“This year with [2D] seismic we are going to have a far more scientific base in which to look forward,” he told ILN.
Located in northern Mongolia and about 60 kilometres from the Russian border, the Ovoot project covers 509 square kilometres.
“We’ve only explored about 10% of the Ovoot Basin in one corner,” Paull said.
Infrastructure is a key challenge as the project is about 160km away from the regional capital of Moron, which is around 390km from the nearest railway line.
Aspire has a social and economic benefit analysis study underway to investigate the benefits of bringing rail to the town and the Mongolian government is increasingly focused on expanding rail development to cater to mining projects throughout the country.
The 2011 drilling program will use 2-3 rigs to drill 10,000m as the company continues work to prove up a big, quality resource, then get funding for project development.
Paull said raising capital in Hong Kong will certainly be one of the funding options in 18 months to two years.
“What you are looking at here is a very high quality large scale, coking coal deposit which will probably rank amongst the top one or two coking coal deposits in Mongolia,” he said.
“And you combine that with the rising importance of Mongolia in supply chains of East Asian customers, it has strategic significance and economic significance.”
The quality results rated the raw coal of the project at a 6618 kilocalories per kilogram on an air dried (ad) basis.
The ash was 19.5% ad while sulfur was 1.1%, and a washed product from this raw coal is expected to yield mid-volatile coking coal in demand from steelmakers.
Aspire shares closed up A7c or 12.8% to 61.5c on Friday.
Commodities trader Noble Group confirmed it owned 4.1% of Aspire's issued capital this morning.
