Prairie Mining Limited is focused on establishing a new coking coal supplier to the European steel industry through the development of its two coking coal projects in Poland:
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- The Debiensko Hard Coking Coal Project
- The Jan Karski Semi-soft Coking Coal Mine
Debiensko
The Debiensko Mine (“Debiensko” or “Project”) is a fully permitted, hard coking coal project located in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin in the south west of the Republic of Poland. Debiensko is bordered by the Knurow-Szczyglowice Mine in the north west and the Budryk Mine in the north east, both owned and operated by Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa SA (“JSW”), Europe’s leading producer of hard coking coal.
Debiensko was originally opened in 1898 and was operated by various Polish mining companies until 2000 when mining operations were suspended due to a major government led restructuring of the coal sector caused by a downturn in global coal prices. In October 2016, Prairie Mining Limited acquired all of the issued shares of NWR Karbonia S.A. which held 100% beneficial interest in the Debiensko.
With existing site facilities and infrastructure including power, water, rail and road in addition to the mining concession, environmental consent and local planning all being in place, the Project is considered “development-ready”. Debiensko’s strategically competitive location means that approximately half of Central Europe’s coking plants and steelmaking capacity are within 250km of the Project and are connected by existing road and rail infrastructure.
Following detailed technical due diligence by Prairie, the Company is confident that a revised development approach would allow for the early mining of profitable coal seams, whilst minimising upfront capital costs. This is likely to include focusing on a smaller area of Debiensko to target coal seams that are more readily accessible. Prairie has proven expertise in defining commercially robust projects and applying international standards in Poland.
Since the principals of Apollo Group become involved with Prairie in 2011, the company’s market capitalisation has increased from $8 million to over $100+ million. This increase has been the result of key strategic decisions / actions taken by the company, including:
- Acquisition of the Debiensko Premium Hard Coking Coal Mine, and following the completion of a Scoping Study in early 2017, is currently in discussions with potential funding and regional offtake parties, and has also commenced a full BFS
- The successful application and granting of the Jan Karski Mine, which is now in the final stages of a full BFS being completed as part of a Strategic Funding and Construction co-operation Agreement between Prairie and China Coal
- Progressive appointment of a dynamic and experienced executive corporate and operational team
- Ensuring the companies activities are well funded by securing funding from a cornerstone investor as well as a number of UK based institutional investors
- Undertaking extensive development activities on both projects
- The first mining company to apply international standards and a systematic quality control approach for all exploration and development activities in the Polish coal sector
Jan Karski Mine
The Jan Karski Mine (“JKM”, formerly Lublin Coal Project) is an advanced, large scale premium coal project in south eastern Poland. JKM has attractive coal quality parameters, particularly within the 391 seam, with the potential to produce semi-soft coking coal, comparable to international benchmark semi-soft coking coals as well as semi-soft coking coals already produced in Poland.
JKM is located in the Lublin Coal Basin, South-East Poland close to well established regional rail and port infrastructure with underutilised bulk cargo capacity for low transportation costs to regional European markets by rail, and to the seaborne export market through underutilised ports in the north of Poland.
JKM has a well-defined coal resource, located in an area with a long history of coal mining. It is situated adjacent to the Bogdanka coal mine which has been in commercial production since 1982. Bogdanka has successfully demonstrated that the Lublin Coal Basin has the potential to host a new generation of large scale coal projects with ideal geological and mining conditions for high productivity longwall operations.
Rail Lublin Region
Project Location
Shaft
European Coking Coal Dynamics
Coking coal, also known as metallurgical coal, is an essential ingredient in the production of steel. Europe consumes over 75Mtpa of coking coal per year of which 64Mt (85%) is imported, mainly from Australia and North America. The European Union has therefore determined coking coal to be an “economically important” Critical Raw Material.
*As per ASX announcement 16 March 2017