After the crap last 4 days I have had this is welcome news.
Balamara Resources (BMB) THERE is not much joy at the moment for the thermal coal producers. Prices of sub-$US75 a tonne and a US94c exchange rate have made sure of that. Then there is the issue of Australia’s high-cost base and the noise from an increasingly sophisticated anti-coal brigade. But that’s for coal producers stuck here. Ever fleet-of-foot juniors are increasingly finding that the happier climes can be found overseas, and they have taken to finding more welcoming investment climates with gusto. Poland has become a favourite destination, all in response to the above, and on the premise that coal will remain a major (low-cost) component of the world’s energy mix longer than any of us will be around. Balamara managing director Mike Ralston has positioned the Perth-based group in the thick of things in Poland, firstly with the Nowa Ruda coking coal project and, more recently, the Mariola thermal coal project. Now Ralston has taken Balamara deeper in to Polish coal with the pick-up of a third coal project: the Sawin North thermal coal project. Apart from anything else, it gives Balamara coal assets covering all three of the major hard coal basins in the country. Securing the exploration rights to Sawin North is something of a coup for a company of Balamara’s size ($27m market cap at its last sale price of 7.8c a share) as the project comes with a resource estimate of 1.3 billion tonnes, one based on extensive drilling in the 1970s and 1980s by the Polish government.
