Stock in the company, which has revived mining for coking coal in the Grande Cache area of west-central Alberta, traded as high as C$13.25 up from $2.60 when the shares were issued more than six months ago.
Earlier the company announced it had completed the infrastructure required for the mine, including a 13 kilometre access road, a 25 KV power line and substation and the portal excavation and pad construction.
Approximately 20,000 tonnes of coal have been mined from the portal development and moved to stockpile where it is waiting haulage to the processing facility. Grande Cache has taken delivery of the underground mining equipment and the underground site office and shop facilities are in place. Portal protection structures are being installed and mining of the entryways will commence upon completion of the portal structure installation.
"The first two crews of experienced underground miners and trades people have been hired and are working at site and the last two crews have been hired and will be available for work by the end of November" said Gene Wusaty, vice-president, operations, general manager and chief operating officer of Grande Cache.
"The construction of the underground entryways and tunnels over the next several weeks will produce high quality coal and it is expected that the No. 7 underground mine will progress towards reaching a production level of 100,000 tonnes per month early in the New Year. At full production, the No. 7 underground operation will employ approximately 100 people".
The company is developing a long-term mining operation to produce metallurgical coal for the export market from Grande Cache's coal leases covering over 15,000 hectares in the Smoky River Coalfield located in west-central Alberta.
