COAL Asia Holdings Inc., holder of the country's second largest coal reserves and resources, is accelerating its commercial production through its subsidiary Titan Mining & Energy Corp. (TMEC) from its previously projected target date of January 2014 to October 2013.
At present, the company, which has the potential to become the biggest producer of high-grade bituminous coal, is also evaluating and testing two new large coal deposit areas within its coal operating contract (COC) area in Davao Oriental which was previously undiscovered.
The company is making full use of the proceeds from the capital building exercise held last October 2012 when Coal Asia was listed in the local bourse and raised approximately P800 million in order to build-up capacity for TMEC to complete its exploration and mine development activities in the Mindanao area.
In a previous disclosure, the net proceeds from the IPO are earmarked to bring its Davao Oriental mine into production by 2014 and its Zamboanga Sibugay mine by 2015.
The expected start of commercial production for Davao Oriental has been moved up as a result of the completion of drilling and exploration activities a few months ahead of schedule.
Coal Asia chair Harald Tomintz is pleased with the early completion of drilling and exploration activities, as well as the exploratory results, and credits this to the dedication of his team.
"Coal Asia wants to bring the local industry into a sustainable level and developments like these not only keep us on track, but also further accelerate our goal in achieving that," Tomintz said.
The company has also kept the public float at 20 percent and has not increased it to 57 percent as erroneously reported. The majority shareholders have also agreed to a one year lock-up instead of the PSE mandated six-month period.
"The developments in both exploration and production have only skimmed the surface of Coal Asia's true value, which is why the majority shareholders have agreed to a longer lock-up period," Tomintz said.
A reevaluation of Coal Asia's reserves and resources is underway, and a better and improved reserve figure can be expected once the report in finalized before the end of the first quarter.
Current sales figures for TMEC have amounted to P63 million, which is triple the sales from 2011 and can be attributed from the Zamboanga Sibugay area alone.
Published in the Sun.Star Davao newspaper on February 11, 2013. source
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