The company’s strategy is to invest in coal projects that are capable of rapid growth and exploitation. In its first set of results since being admitted to AIM, Coal International said it now owned 29% of King Coal, 58% of Maple Creek and 9.8% of Northern Energy and Mining.
Both King Coal and Maple Coal's operations are located in West Virginia, USA. King Coal’s reserves total about 35 million tons of metallurgical and thermal coal in two surface and two underground operations.
The company is refurbishing its existing coal preparation plant to handle 6 million tons per annum. Once complete, coal production at a rate of approximately 80,000 tons per month of coking coal is due to start rising to over two million tons per annum of clean coal in three years.
The company said it anticipates funding this development from current cash reserves.
The Maple Creek operations is in the process of transferring permits, which once complete will give the company 87Mt of thermal and coking coal
Maple Coal plans to start production of thermal coal from opencut mining at a rate of approximately 850,000-1Mtpa over an estimated mine life of 17 years.
Establishment costs are predicted at under $US9 million, also to be funded from cash reserves.
Meanwhile, W Durand Eppler has been appointed chief executive officer of Coal International with responsibility for executing and completing the company’s growth strategy. Eppler spent nine years as vice president of Newmont Mining Corporation, responsible for corporate development activities, following a twenty-year career in investment banking and corporate finance focused on the natural resource industries.
Dan Stickel will become the president of the company’s US operations with responsibility for the King Coal and Maple Coal business plans. Stickel is an experienced coal executive with a distinguished 28-year career in coal mine engineering, operations and mine administration, having worked with Drummond Company, US Steel Mining and Arch Coal Company among others. He is a graduate of West Virginia University with a degree in mining engineering.
