re: Ann: Preferred tenderer for Coal Explorat... Congratulations...

re: Ann: Preferred tenderer for Coal Explorat... Congratulations to Mr Vincent O'Rourke and Mr Terence Crawford for the great timing of their recent share purchases, coincidentally 6 and 14 days respectively before WEC had lodged its application for the objective tenement on 22 April 2014!

Interestingly the map tool provided by the Queensland Department for Natural Resources and Mines at https://minesonlinemaps.business.qld.gov.au/ does no longer provide any information for EPC 25623 although it did until May 12th. Now it says that no permits were found.

Fortunately I stored the data provided which compromises the lodgement date, the geography of the 4416ha-sized tenement (open the following file in Google Earth: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16732085/EPC%2025623.kml ) as well as its native title category (exclusive land).

The deposit looks pretty interesting. In the west it neighbours on AngloAmerican's Foxleigh mine which compromises a deposit of 35Mt of metallurgical coal with a calorific value of some 7,000 kcal/kg (see p. 225 of annual report at http://www.angloamerican.com/~/media/Files/A/Anglo-American-Plc/reports/annual-report-2013/annual-report2013.pdf ).
Foxleigh is an open cut operation, with 2013 output of 2.0 Mt of high quality PCI coal at a strip ratio of 10:1 according to a 2012 investor presentation (p. 53 http://www.angloamerican.com/~/media/Files/A/Anglo-American-Plc/investors/presentations/2012pres/metallurgical_coal_analyst_presentation.pdf )

If the coal seams present at Foxleigh extend to the EPC 25623 tenement there should be a pile of coal to dig out from quite shallow depths.

An electrified railway line is located some 35km away by road close to a mine called German Creek from where it is another 270km to Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal.

There are a number of high rank coal mines in the proximity (Foxleigh, Lake Lindsay, German Creek, German Creek East, Oakly Creek) which in 2003 had a cumulative output close to 20 Mtpa, so there should arise plenty of coal fines that could be briquetted.

Finally here's an interesting map of the Bowen basin including its mines and transport infrastructure:
http://mines.industry.qld.gov.au/assets/coal-pdf/cen_qld_coal_map_10.pdf