Brakfontein coal project is 50.29% owned by the South African Department of Mineral Resources.
The Brakfontein coal project will be the third project in the country for the mining company which already owns Kangala colliery and New Clydesdale colliery.
Brakfontein has a JORC compliant thermal coal resource of 87.6 million tonnes, out of which 70.5 million is in measured category.
Universal Coal can begin the work as soon as it gets the permission of the Integrated Water Use Licence and Waste Licence.
It previously got the permission from the National Environmental Management Act authorisation, and now mining rights is a major step towards the beginning of the work.
Universal Coal CEO Tony Weber was quoted by Mining Weekly: "Kangala has excess capacity, enabling production to increase from its current 2.4-million-tonne-a-year run-of-mine (RoM) rate to 4.25-million tonnes a year.
"Given Brakfontein’s close proximity to the Kangala colliery, Universal Coal is evaluating the trucking of RoM coal to Kangala as an option in the feasibility study, thereby, substantially reducing capital development costs and the scale of the water licence required."
