Australian mining company Coal of Africa Limited (CoAL) experienced a very unstable end to their third quarter, which ended on 31 March 2013. Even so, they have no intention of stopping development of their various projects in the water-sensitive Soutpansberg coal field.

This state of affairs was revealed in a quarterly report that CoAL released last Monday.

CoAL’s export coal sales took a 34.1% plummet to 271 069 tonnes in the March 2013 quarter, compared to the preceding quarter. Domestic coal sales also decreased with 27.1% to 112 440 tonnes, compared to the previous quarter. 

This was largely due to CoAL’s waning resources at their Vuna colliery in Middelburg. In addition, the mine was hit hard when their Vele colliery here in the Soutpansberg flooded in January this year.

Vele received more than 500mm of rainfall in four days, flooding the open-cast coal pit and forcing CoAL to close down operations for three whole weeks. Shortly after the floods, in February, the collapse of a bridge along the Matola railway line also prevented CoAL from exporting coal. The railway, which is operated by Transnet Freight Rail, runs from Vele through to the Matola terminal in southern Mozambique, from where the coal is exported.

Outgoing CEO of CoAL Mr John Wallington confirmed in the report that the bridge was fixed on 19 April and that CoAL is expected to start exporting coal by mid-May.

With an eye to the future, CoAL said they expected to spend around $15.0 million in development projects for the June 2013 quarter. This will include expansion and upgrading work to be done at Vele, as well as the completion of their Makhado project's feasibility study and drilling and exploration work at their MbeuYashu project.

The MbeuYashu project is the new name that CoAL gave their Greater Soutpansberg Project (GSP). The GSP incorporates CoAL’s Chapudi, Mopane and Makhado projects. The new name was decided on during the March 2013 quarter, when CoAL continued to compile exploration and technical data on the GSP project. CoAL has confirmed that, as soon as the exploration work is done, that they will start applying for the various new order mining rights to start mining at MbeuYashu. For the Makhado project, which is 65km south-west of Musina, CoAL is currently waiting for their mining right to be granted, subject to completing a black-economic-empowerment transaction for the project.

For this project, CoAL apperently admitted during an info meeting held at Tshipise on 20 April that they are still not sure where the water will come from to operate the mine.