Nuurst Thermal Coal
The Nuurst Project is a wholly owned 3,451 Ha exploration licence located 120 kms south east of Ulaanbaatar in an area with a number of operating coal mines.
Nuurst is 6 km from existing rail infrastructure allowing direct access onto the existing Trans-Mongolian Railway line providing low cost access to the key thermal coal export markets in China.
In 2011, the Company completed a significant drilling programme that peaked at 49 people and 4 diamond drill rigs on site in early November. A total of 7,411m of drilling over 26 holes was completed that discovered a major coal seam development of 1.5km x 3km in size with some coal sequences being greater than 100m in thickness. A further 700m of sub-cropping coal seam development was also identified.
The drilling programme culminated in the release of the Company’s significant maiden JORC Reportable Coal Resource of 489 million tonnes (417 million tonnes Indicated, 72 million tonnes Inferred) in December 2011. The resource estimate, compiled by consultancy CSA Global Pty Ltd, was almost double the Company’s targets and confirmed the potential for a large scale thermal coal mine. The scale and quality of the resource and coal seam thickness (100+ metre coal sequences) should translate into a low stripping ratio, which lends itself to a large scale, low cost mining operation.
Modun appointed CSA Global (CSA) to update its Nuurst Coal Resource (417 million tonnes Indicated, 72 million tonnes Inferred) and quality estimates as a result of additional drilling, trenching and assaying work undertaken during a drilling and trenching programme undertaken in the 2012 drilling season. The work by CSA is currently underway with final results expected in early November 2012.
