LONDON (Alliance News) - Atlantic Coal PLC on Monday said the mammoth seam at the Stockton mine in the US has been uncovered and is "almost solid anthracite", as the company also reported large rises in production and sales in the first 10 months of 2015.
The Stockton mine is located in the eastern portion of the Hazleton Coal basin, part of the Eastern Middle Anthracite coalfield in Pennsylvania in the US.
The miner said the mammoth seam contains very few old mine workings and averages 30 feet in thickness, confirming the company's study of old underground mine plans that the seam was "almost solid anthracite".
Anthracite is a hard, compact variety of coal that has the highest carbon content and highest calorific content of all types of coal, and also has the fewest impurities.
"This anthracite seam of will be worked over the coming months, providing both feedstock for the production of clean anthracite products and raw anthracite for sale to other processors," it said.
In the first 10 months of 2015, Atlantic Coal produced 164,328 tonnes of anthracite, which was up 26% from the 130,357 tonnes produced a year earlier. The 10-month total nearly exceeded the 165,052 tonnes that were produced in the whole of 2014.
"The excellent performance of our Stockton Mine continues with record year to date production and sales. As we still have two months of production and sales left in 2015, we are confident of beating our previous record production and sales by a significant margin," said Managing Director Steve Best.
Sales in the same period totalled 220,589 tonnes compared to only 153,662 tonnes a year earlier. Those sales are made up of clean anthracite sales and raw anthracite sales, with raw sales only commencing in the spring of 2015.
Atlantic Coal said clean anthracite sales reached a record level in October.
"It is particularly pleasing to see a record monthly sales figure in October and this, together with our healthy inventory of both clean anthracite product and raw anthracite gives us confidence for Stockton's performance for the remainder of 2015 and the winter season running into 2016," said Best.
Atlantic Coal shares were up 9.6% to 0.142 pence per share on Monday morning.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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