Strategic Natural Resources' (SNR) subsidiary, Elitheni Coal, has identified about 53m tonnes of additional coal at the phase 1-4 exploration areas.
The 74%-owned unit has found an additional 53m tonnes of coal based on the 2011 drilling season comprises around 883,000 tonnes on a measured basis, 21m tonnes on an indicated basis and 31.8m tonnes on an inferred basis.
This resource update is the result of an internal assessment, which the company is having verified during the second quarter of this year.
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This will be added to the existing 150m tonnes verified in 2010.
The firm also said that it is "engaged in active negotiation" on the finalisation of its funding programme, which is being structured in order to allow SNR to deliver the first coal shipments to Trasteel by the middle of 2012.
SNR Chief Executive Officer David Nel said: "We are pleased to provide this brief insight into these promising results identifying an increase of approximately 33% in our resource calculation. The approximate 200m tonne coal resource we now estimate exists on only 8,500 hectares, which is less than 5% of our total 184,000 hectare rights area."
The share price rose 3.68% to 21.12p by 08:33.
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