More coal basins confirmed

in Zimbabwe have confirmed high grades as published last month.
The firm said that the results support the presence of high coking coal fractions across multiple seams.
The Lubu concession covers 192,36 square kilometres of the highly prospective Karro Mid-Zambezi coal basin, in the established Hwange mining district. The second batch of results, received from the ALS laboratory, in South Africa, was taken from five boreholes drilled at the Lubu concession.
Sable Mining said the thickness of the main seam ranges from 20,4m to 15,14m, confirming the continuity of the coal formation on the concession.
The swelling indices were slightly higher, peaking at 8,5 while the calorific values, ash content and volatility correlated with the first batch of results.
Most importantly, the average yields of coking coal from Lubu increased from just 21 percent to about 26 percent in the new batch of submitted samples.
A total of 350 samples from the Lubu concession have now been submitted to the laboratory, of which 198 have been returned in two batches.
The results from the first batch of samples confirmed an upward revision of the inferred resource to 360-million tonnes of main-seam coal only.
However, no Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (Jorc-) or South African Code for the Reporting of Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves-compliant resource estimates currently exist from the Lubu coal concession.
The second phase of the drilling programme has now started. This will incorporate the Phase 1 drill holes to publish a Jorc-compliant resource on Lubu, and start the drilling of Area 2, which is south of the current drill location.
Two new targets in the special grant area have been identified and they present a good opportunity for additional shallow coal to be explored in the future. Sable Mining said the new areas identified in the Special Grant area provided further opportunity for an increase in the company’s resource tonnes. Sable Mining chief executive Mr Andrew Groves said the second batch of results confirmed the potential for a large metallurgical and thermal coal deposit at Lubu.
“The continuity of data is excellent and the uplift in yield is an added positive.
“The aim of the company is to rapidly advance Lubu through further drilling to upgrade the current 360-million-tonne estimate and publish a Jorc-compliant resource,” said Mr Groves.
Mining has increasingly become important and is seen as the most viable way of mainstreaming locals into economic activities. Together with agriculture the sector is expected to anchor economic growth.