Goldsource Announces Initial Border Coal Resource
Overall, the estimated coal resources at Border consist of 63.5 million Indicated tonnes plus 89.6 million Inferred tonnes, and 18.7 million Speculative tonnes. The Inferred and Speculative resources are limited only by the current lack of drill hole data within an already defined geophysical anomaly. Further drilling is planned that may convert the majority, if not all, of the Inferred and Speculative tonnes into the Indicated Resource category. As defined in GSC Paper 88-21, “Speculative resources are those based on extrapolation of few data points over large distances and are confined to regions where extensive coal exploration has not yet taken place”.
[…]
This initial coal resource with estimated coal quality represents a new significant energy resource for Saskatchewan and Canada. Conceptually, this resource could potentially generate 300 to 600 Megawatts per year of affordable electricity for 30 to 50 years. This would be equivalent to approximately 10 to 20% of the current annual electricity needs for Saskatchewan.
10 to 20% of electrical needs for Saskatchewan? How much electricity could Sask possibly need? One would have thought a few extra battery packs would do the job as the power lines appear to be mostly for crows to perch on. Okay, okay, it’s been 40 some years since I passed through Regina, and the night lights then were hardly dazzling.
“300 to 600 Megawatts per year” is meaningless. Doesn’t anybody understand energy?
Woodporter:
This is one of my pet peeves. I am always reading articles on electricity that are filled with nonsense such as “the average home uses 3000 kilowatts” instead of kw-hours. I try to use the speed analogy – if you say “I drove 60 miles an hour”, you can’t know how far you driven unless you know how long you were driving. That seems to work.
larben, KevinB: the export potential for power and/or coal is huge (think China) and this find puts Saskatchewan up there with Alberta. But, while Alberta coal seams run at about .5 to 1.5 meters in thickness, this new Sask resource runs at an average of 25 meters thick. Furthermore, the coal is mostly near the surface and the area tested so far is tiny. All other venture companies in the region are hitting coal on either side of the Man/Sask border, so when taken on the whole, this find is one of the largest ever in Canada once the rest of the region is fully mapped. Coal prices now, and as projected in the future, make it incredibly valuable.
… and you wonder why politicians in the East want to tax CO2.
its a stock announcement folks. they are always vague.
I bet the Chinese have some coal power stations they can sell you. You know the ones they build all the time and don’t have to worry about clean burn and emissions.
For those not aware, the carbon credit money sent to China to build clean plants, doesn’t.
Not all coal is created equal. Does anyone know much about the grade or quality of this coal deposit?
I predict this will inspire another “study” by the Pembina Institute and Suzuki Foundation concluding that this must be left in place….it would spoil their back to nature (neo-lithic troglodite ambitions) agenda.
sasquatch at 12:50pm
You neglect to mention the Pembina/Suzuki report will strongly recommend that any financial loss to the economy by leaving the coalbeds undisturbed will be recovered and distributed to provinces east of the MB border through a new tax on the oil sands projects of AB and the same will apply to future SK projects.
Woodporter:
“A majority of the resource is above 7,300 BTU/lb AR which is similar to currently producing coal mines in Alberta
Woodporter.. From what I have read it is suitable for power generation in a ‘modern’ coal plant. I take that as it will require some sulfur scrubbing but not to the extent of the southern coal deposits currently in use. Could not find a detailed analysis though or a detailed explanation of moderate. A lot of coal though.
Burn it clean and give our food producing plants some more ‘life-giving’ carbon dioxide.
(Note: atmospheric CO2 conc went up a hundred ppm to 380 ppm. Good thing !! If it had went down a hundred to 180 ppm, all plant growth would have ceased and we would all be dead.)
I think the Hudson Bay area coal was initially reported as sub-bituminous but I never saw this confirmed, Southern Sask coal is lignite.
Ideally, coal will once again be a popular generating choice after the AGW nonsense is finished. Realistically, it will be a long term battle – look at the irrational resistance to nuclear power that has lasted for decades. I suspect that wind power/NG combos will gain momentum until NG prices skyrocket.
May I translate some of this into English (I write mining feasibility studies for a living).
“119 diamond drill holes totaling approximately 17,370 metres of core”
About 146 metres per hole, on average. Yes, should be minable by open pit methods, but barely (assuming they drilled to the footwall contact = the bottom)
“Speculative tonnes” do not exist for any mineral other than coal. Under NI 43-101 (mining disclosure regulation) you can report measured, indicated (and add the two together) and inferred (which may not be added to the other two because the confidence of it ‘existing’ is too low). The Quintette Mine in northern BC was arguably built on the basis of Speculative Tonnes (these codes didn’t exist in those days). Quintette lost a lot of money.
http://www.bcsc.bc.ca/mining.asp
Strip ratios on the basis of volume waste : volume ore
3.3:1 good
12.7 : 1 terrible, probably won’t go there
7.4 : 1 possibly economic, depends on the coal price.
Note that they expressed strip ratio as ‘waste in bank metres cubed : coal in tonnes’. This understates the amount of stripping necessary versus what other miners report, giving an unreasonably optimistic picture of the economics. More correct to report bcm:bcm or tonnes:tonnes. Read another way, I would divide the strip ratio they reported by the 1.3 density of coal to make a proper comparison to other mines.
Ash 11% – 22%, high but manageable. Metallurgical coal is typically less than 9% ash, but this thermal coal can operate with higher ash content if you put in a lot of scrubbing equipment. Ash content in the mined coal will be higher due to dilution by overburden.
Sulphur is also ok, but will need scrubbers. Just another cost, not a risky technology.
Moisture is ok. Means you haul a lot of tonnes of water instead of coal, so the distance to the end-user is important.
‘coal thicknesses averaging approximately 25 metres and have coal intervals ranging up to 100 metres in true thickness.’
This probably means that the coal deposits were folded and the folds measure up to 100 m deep
Final analysis: Good, but not yet a barn burner. They have a lot of work to do before these deposits are more than ‘Speculative’.
-Alex Doll, P.Eng, MAusIMM
Further to Alex’ comment above, Metallurgical coal mines usually use around 8:1 BCMs of waste per clean tonne of coal. Coal varies in considerably in density between the raw coal in the ground (which still has rock inclusions) and the clean coal that is shipped/burnt. Typically the tonnes of clean coal produced will be 90-100% of the volume of the coal insitu (in other words, the coal weighs about 40% more than water for an SG of about 1.4, but you’ll lose about 40% of your volume during the cleaning process, so 100 cubic meters of raw coal will produce on the order of 90-100 tonnes of clean coal)
Coal is traditionally priced based on its use and the nasties in its mix (sulphur being one of the worst, but western Canadian coals tend to be comparatively low in it). Metallurgical coal is usually the highest price, and thermal would be somewhere between 20% and 50% of the metallurgical price. If you think that power prices and shortages will remain at current levels then this project would be worth further study. If you think that the current high prices for coal and power are a blip, you should stay away.