ALBERTA - Coalspur Mines of Perth, Australia, has been quietly advancing the Vista coal project near Hinton. Now that it has reached the advanced exploration stage, Coalspur has signed a memorandum of understanding with Canadian National Railway for the transport of export thermal coal to western Canadian ports starting in 2015.
Coalspur plans to begin production in 2015 at a rate of 2.5 million t/y. That amount will rise to about 11.2 million t/y by 2019.
CN and Coalspur will jointly design and build a rail siding at the Vista mine site. The siding will handle 175-car unit trains. A definitive transportation agreement is to be negotiated next year following Coalspur's completion of the bankable feasibility study on the project.
The Vista project has an initial marketable reserve of at least 260 million tonnes. Measured, indicated and inferred resources add up to almost 1.3 billion tonnes, one-quarter of which are in the inferred category. Initial development costs were estimated to be $580 million in the pre-feasibility report.
Coalspur says its Vista coal mine has the potential to be the largest export thermal coal mine in Canada. The company aims to serve customers in China, Japan and Korea.
Learn more at www.Coalspur.com.
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