The company said it had acquired seven million tonnes per annum of priority capacity rights at the WICET in Gladstone, increasing the likelihood of the company securing its requested port allocation in WICET stage 2.

Stanmore said it was a significant milestone because the port capacity would allow the company to export its planned 7Mtpa of coal from 2015 from the Range and Mackenzie projects.

Stage 1 of the terminal is expected to be completed by mid-2014 and is targeting 27Mtpa of capacity.

During the quarter, the coal explorer significantly ramped up exploration at its seven project areas, announcing an initial marketable coal reserve of 94Mt at the Range project.

It also resulted in the total JORC-compliant resource at the Range increasing 5% to 229Mt.

Stanmore said the project was on track to produce 5Mtpa of high quality thermal coal for export from 2015 over a minimum mine life of 11 years.

The Range will be an open pit project with a proposed on-site coal handling and preparation plant.

Coal will be transported via a 20km conveyor belt to the planned Surat Basin rail link and then to the planned WICET stage 2 port at Gladstone for export.

Meanwhile, drilling has been completed at five locations at its Belview coking coal project, resulting in a defined exploration target of 385-555Mt.

“The six-metre Gemini coal seam, previously mined as a hard coking coal at BHP’s historical Leichhardt mine, has now been demonstrated to occur extensively in the western section of the Belview lease,” Stanmore said.

An initial JORC-compliant inferred resource on the project is expected later this year.

The Belview project is located about 4km east of the Leichhardt mine, where the Gemini seam of prime coking coal was mined underground by BHP between the 1960s and 1980s.

Stanmore said it had strengthened its board during the quarter after it appointed Doug McAlpine as the company’s chief financial officer.

McAlpine previously worked at contracting and services company Watpac Limited.