MetroCoal

With a drilling program completed in August, MetroCoal said the resources for its Bundi project in Queensland’s Surat Basin were increased by 11%.

When including a boost to the nearby Juandah longwall project to the southeast, the resources of the relevant licence were lifted to more than 2 billion tonnes with 296 million tonnes in the indicated and 1705.6Mt in the inferred categories.

While there is enough data to underpin a prefeasibility study for a longwall operation, Glencore Xstrata’s decision to shelve the Wandoan project in the region has set back plans to develop the Surat Basin railway.

“Although MetroCoal has joined together with other Surat Basin coal companies to consider other options for the construction of the railway it is now accepted that the Bundi project will be delayed beyond our previous timetable,” the explorer said.

“In light of this delay and in order to preserve cash, MetroCoal has suspended further operations in the field including the environmental impact statement and no longer intends to submit the mining lease application this year.

“The company will review the timetable when there is further information on the start date of the SBR and when the overall coal market and coal price improves.”

Guildford board shuffling

Explorer Guildford Coal has had a raft of board changes over recent months as it gets closer to first coal cash flow in Mongolia.

In late May it appointed a new chief financial officer, while its chairman Peter Lindsay and non-executive director Mike Chester both tendered resignations in September.

Last week mining engineer Peter Kane took up the director spot and became Guildford’s newest CFO with Guildford advising that the CFO appointed in May had “left his position”.

On Wednesday Guildford announced that Kane was also appointed as the interim chief executive officer, effective immediately.

“This appointment arises from the resignation of Peter Westerhuis as group managing director of Guildford, also effective immediately,” the explorer announced with no other explanation.

Wesfarmers coal output

While the Curragh open cut mine in Queensland produced only 0.3% less coal in the September quarter compared to the previous quarter, metallurgical production was up 1.2% to 2.05Mt with the thermal coal output falling 3.7%.

But the mine is still down on met coal production year to date.

“For the 12 months to 30 September 2013, metallurgical coal production decreased 5.4% to 7,329,000 tonnes, largely reflecting, as previously advised, the impact of significant wet weather associated with cyclone Oswald in early 2013, which interrupted rail and port activities,” Wesfarmers said.

While production at its 40%-owned Bengalla open cut mine in the Hunter Valley was down 1.6% in the recent quarter compared to the previous three months, it was up an impressive 34% from the corresponding September quarter of 2012.

Wesfarmers’ share was 880,000t of the recent thermal coal production.