The agreement paves the way for cultural heritage clearance work ahead of the next phase of drilling planned for EPC 2196.
Drilling remains scheduled to start this quarter.
The 2012 drilling program identified the occurrence of coking coal on EPC 2196.
This next phase of drilling is intended to provide further information on the resource. The company announced a 28.5 million tonne JORC inferred resource in March.
A total of six boreholes on three sites, including three core holes, were drilled on EPC 2196 in late 2012.
The exploration target for the area was also upgraded from the range of 4Mt to 30Mt, to the range of 20 to 40Mt (in addition to the JORC Inferred Resource).
Seams in the lower Burrum Coal Measures were correlated between the three holes with a potential working section of 2.50m to 2.61m with 0.52m to 0.19m partings.
