A total of 20 diamond holes, with an average depth of 35m for each hole, for a total of 700m are planned to be completed during February and March.

This first phase program is intended to enable an estimation of the in-situ resource to an indicated and inferred status to be made.

All holes will be subjected to wire line geophysical logging and selected holes will be subjected to geotechnical testwork. The core samples will be delivered to Noko Laboratories in Witbank for washability testwork.

It is anticipated that the results of this testwork will be received by Gemecs, the company’s geological consultants, by the second half of next month and that Gemecs will be able to complete resource modelling by the end of March or early April, the company said.

“The objective of the drilling program is to test the extent of coal mineralisation on the Roodepoort and adjacent Diepspruit properties,” Xceed said.

These properties, totaling an area of 1120 hectares, are situated approximately 120km to the east of Johannesburg and 60km east of the company’s Moabsvelden project. Roodepoort is located within 20km of Eskom’s Kriel and Matla coal fired power stations and is approximately 10km from Exxaro’s New Clydesdale colliery.

Due diligence drilling carried out by the company on the properties during the December 2011 quarter demonstrated good correlation with historical drilling and confirmed the presence of near-surface coal measures containing potential export quality, as well as domestic quality coal.