For an idea of the potential resources that RIV is sitting on, here is an extract from the analsysis recently done. Note the terms 'at least' and 'conservative' . The former AQA tenements in particular could be many times larger as the same coal seams as Benga have already been intersected and these licences are thirty times the size!!
Potential Resource Valuation We have examined Riversdale’s Mozambique licence holdings with a view to analysing its potential resources, then applying an industry rule of thumb for undeveloped coal resources of $1/t. The Company’s current resource covers only a very small percentage of its large Mozambique licence. The fact that a number of these licences are located in the highly prospective Moatize Coal Basin (Figure 1), indicates excellent exploration potential to delineate a very large resource inventory. On the Benga licence, the current resource only covers the northern half of the tenement and is still open to the south. Indications are that the coal resource extends to the south, though the coal is deeper than at the northern end. Consequently we can see this resource doubling to ~2.5bt. The other license covered by the Tata JV, Tete, is also within the Moatize basin and covers 20,400ha. We believe that the Tete licence is just as prospective as Benga, and given its significantly larger size, we conservatively see it potentially containing up to 4bt. The ground acquired by Riversdale from Aquila Resources Limited in August 2007, covers ~86,600ha. A substantial portion of these licences are contiguous with Benga and Tete, as well as Vale’s (CVRD) Moatize licences. Initial drilling to date has already intersected the same coal seams as found on Benga. Given the significant size of this package and that it is also contained within the Moatize Coal Basin we see potential for it to contain at least 5bt of coal resources, most of which is likely to be in the licence adjacent to Tete, Benga and Vale. We have allocated potential resources of 2bt for the remaining ~178,000ha. We see this as conservative, though significant portions of this holding are outside the Moatize basin but are in areas known to contain coal seams
RIV Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
