The Powder River Basin (PRB) covers an area of ~190km east to west and ~320km north to south in northeast Wyoming and southeast Montana. With a number of large open cut mines, the PRB accounts for a significant proportion of the thermal coal supply in the United States (US).
The PRB is recognised as one of the lowest-cost coal-producing areas in the world, with mining costs ranging from US$5-15/t. PRB thermal coal is usually very low in ash and sulphur and has a similar energy content to Indonesian export thermal coal.
County’s wholly-owned thermal coal leases at Miller and the BAT/Piney Creek portion of the Shell Creek area, are both located in the PRB of Wyoming in the U.S. and together host 381Mt of JORC Code 2004#-compliant thermal coal resources. Shell Creek, in the western region of the PRB, hosts an open-cut and underground thermal coal resource and Miller, in the eastern part of the PRB, hosts a 310Mt shallow underground/deep open cut thermal coal resource.
At this stage, the Company considers it has sufficient information from its exploration activities and does not intend to undertake any further significant work on the resource until a suitable end user can be identified.
# The reported results have not been upgraded to JORC Code 2012 standards and there is no guarantee that further studies and exploration activities will enable the reporting of Mineral Resources resources in accordance with the JORC Code 2012. However, the past results are indicative of the prospectivity of the licence areas.
