"Visible" is one of the most exciting words used in mining circles and few sights can match that of the Raven underground coal project on Vancouver Island.
Located approximately 80 km north of Nanaimo near the Island’s east coast, the 3,100-hectare property is shared by Compliance Energy Corporation of Vancouver and the joint venture of Itochu Corp. and LG International, forming the Comox Joint Venture.
With road access to Port Alberni, 82 km west, the Raven project is a semi-soft coking coal 43-101 compliant resource consisting of 97.5 million tonnes of measured and indicated, as well as 34.5 million tonnes of inferred coal.
The project involves underground mining utilizing room and pillar mining methods with conveyor transport to the surface. An annual average of 1.93 million tonnes of raw coal will be processed on site, resulting in total average annual production of 850,000 tonnes of saleable semi-soft metallurgical and thermal middlings coal per year over a 15.5-year production mining life.
Processed coal production will range from 0.65 million to 1.1 million tonnes per year after the initial start up period and excluding the final year of mining.
Processed coal will be transported from Port Alberni and marketed into Asian coal markets, most likely Japan and Korea.
Infrastructure [construction] is anticipated to start in 2013, subject to the receipt of all necessary permits. Mine construction and development would take approximately one year to complete with the first shipment of coal projected to start late 2014 or early 2015.
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