BA & Clermont r isolated basins with some thick seams. At BA the...

BA & Clermont r isolated basins with some thick seams. At BA the thickest seam was known as the 'Big Seam' which was about 30m thick & clean shallow thermal coal.

Most of that has already been mined out over 3 decades (& more) of mining hence the o/c pit. There's still some coal left.

RIO's annual report from March 2013, has 10 mil tons of resource (table also has the product coal quality data). This includes 7 MT's of reserves which got rolled back into resource category due to the shutdown in Nov 2012.

Sedgman's (asx code: SDM) operate the CHPP, so chk their preso's for some interesting reading.

If u chk out the aerial plan on Google earth for BA, there's a massive stockpile of inter/overburden rock that was accumulated over the years by RIO, so the area underneath this pile may also stash some additional insitu coal resource, that's why the additional mine life suggested by Linc.

So, with a 2-3 mtpa production at low opex, an operator like Linc could keep going, unlike RIO who shut it down month b4 xmas 2012. The publican & motel owners in Clermont town will b happy with this news, place is a ghost town.

Wonder who's gonna buy the other mine across the highway, i.e, Clermont mine, that produces a decent tonnage & was RIO's plan-B after BA shutdown. Low thermal coal cost is affecting everyone in this bizness.

Link to RIO's Q2 results for production data.

http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20130716/pdf/42h2gfkf6znvkc.pdf