The updated ore reserves and mineral resources comply are said to comply with the Australasian code for reporting of exploration results, mineral resources and ore reserves, 2012 (JORC Code).
It is based on evaluation of the mine operations, including reprocessing of a primary coal stream to introduce an additional thermal coal product into the operations and marketing plan, and analysing a vast dataset over decades including updates from recent prefeasibility study drilling.
Transforming mine planning processes and tools used to estimate ore reserves and adopting efficient mineral resource estimation methods were also evaluated.
The upgrade in reserves is part of Rio Tinto Coal Australia’s orebody knowledge and strategic mine planning optimization.
Located in the northern part of the Bowen Basin, Hail Creek mine has been drilled using of open hole and wireline coring techniques.
Open holes technique is primarily used for coal and waste structure definition. Core drilling is employed to evaluate coal quality, geotechnical and gas sampling.
