Ownership
Springsure Creek Coal Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bandanna Energy Limited, owns EPC 891 Springsure Creek. It is located 36 km SE of Emerald, and 26 km E of Springsure. It covers an area of 462 km2 and includes an application for a Mining Lease(MLA 70461), made in October 2011.
Location and Infrastructure
The Springsure Creek EPC lies within the north-northwest trending Denison Trough, located along the western margin of the Bowen Basin. The coals form part of the Bandanna Formation. The principal target is the Aries 2 Seam which occurs within the tenement at shallowest depths along the crests of a number of anticlines; the Turkey Creek, Springton, Mooroolloo and Arcturus.
Exploration
The current exploration is concentrated along the Springton Anticline, a north-south trending anticline with a broad (6-8 km wide) crest upon which coals occur at depths from approximately 200 m below the surface. The average thickness of the Aries 2 Seam here is approximately 3 m. Exploration during the 2011 Financial Year was severely hampered by wet weather and flooding, however, with two rigs on site drilling in the September 2011 Quarter drilled 17 holes, for a total of 5888.23 metres, including 371.2 m of core.
Reserves and Resources
Drilling during the last six months of 2011, focused on the Springton domain portion of the Tenement, resulted in a further upgrade of the resources previously announcedin July 2011. As announced to the ASX on 23 December 2011, (Refer to Table of Resources and Reserves and Compliance Statement) total JORC Resources are now 490.5 Million tonnes; comprising Inferred Resources of 262.5 Million tonnes and Indicated Resources of 228.0 Million tonnes. Included in this update was an inaugural Inferred Resource of 29.3 Mt for the Castor Seam, which underlies the target Aries 2 Seam. Based on the previous JORC compliant resources statement for EPC 891 made in July 2011 marketable Reserves were determined to be 102.6 Mt. This reserve increase was based on a high capacity underground longwall mine concept designed by independent Brisbane based mining consultants, Minecraft Pty Ltd. The “marketable” Probable Reserves follows reviews of the mining, economic and marketing data by Minecraft.
Development
On 30 November 2010 Bandanna announced to the ASX that it had submitted an Initial Advice Statement to commence the environmental approvals process. This was followed in June 2011 with formal advice of the receipt of the final terms of reference for the EIS process. As also announced to the ASX in June 2011 the Springsure Creek approvals processes will fall under the transitional arrangements for the new Queensland Strategic Cropping Land legilsation. Mine Development and infrastructure is currently subject to a Definitive Feasibility Study. The deposit is considered capable of supporting two long wall systems, each with a capacity of up to 5.5 Mtpa, subject to port availability.
Coal Quality
Coal quality data recovered so far suggests a coal ash content of around 10%, sulphur content of 0.25% and calorific values of 6310 kcal/kg (adb) for the Aries 2 Seam. ROM coal could be sold as a raw thermal product with no requirement for wash beneficiation. The Castor Seam has a mineable thickness in excess of 2.0 metres with insitu ash of 10-12% and CV of 26.0 KJ/Kg adb. The Castor Seam underlies the Aries 2 Seam and has potential to be mined post or pre Aries 2 development.
Drill hole locations, seismic lines and domain distribution
Figure showing conceptual mine development plan
Section from E – W, Arcturus Rd, Springsure Ck. A1 = Aries 1 Seam, A2 = Aries 2 Seam, Ca = Castor Seam, POL = Pollux Seam, O1 = Orion Seam. Section refers to the SW resource area (Moorooloo). Depth to A2 Seam vary from 220.22m (SPR011) to 293.57m (SPR009).
