JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Coal mining and trading company Minergy on Thursday reported both a quantity and quality boost to its Masama coal project in Botswana.

The company, headed by CEO Andre Bojé, plans to build an opencast coal mine at Masama with the potential to produce 2.4-million tonnes of coal a year.

Its focus will be on delivering quality coal to the regional market, including Botswana and South Africa, as well as to the export market.

All project timelines have been met, making Bojé confident of the project being in production in the third quarter of 2018.

Meanwhile, drilling and exploration has provided a 12% fillip to its coal resource, along with competent persons’ quality uptick.

The total coal resource has risen to 389.9-million tonnes, with the 82.3-million-tonne opencast area hosting a 25-year life-of-mine, which a release to Creamer Media’s Mining Weekly Online described as being good news for the Botswana Stock Exchange-listed Minergy.

Located in the south-western corner of Botswana’s Mmamabula coalfield, Masama is close to rail, road and water infrastructure, with distance advantages over competing suppliers to regional customers.

The resource’s size supports scalable production, highlighting the potential for export coal supply through traders into Asia and Europe.

The resource is close to existing rail, road and water infrastructure, and has significant distance advantages over existing coal suppliers to regional markets.