Prairie Mining plans to go ahead with Dębieńsko coal project

Prairie Mining announced on Tuesday that it will analyse the possibility of mining coal in a previously-closed mine, with hopes of making the mine operational in the near future, according to its press release. “At the beginning of 2017 [as part of conducting a thorough analysis of the mine] we will present preliminary resource estimate and scoping study, [which] we plan to complete by mid-2017,” said president Ben Stoikovich in the release. Dębieńsko was taken over by Prairie in October 2016. According to the press report, it is located in one of Europe's last reserves that have significant resources of coking coal type 35 – raw material sought by customers of the metallurgical industry. It is hoped that coal from Dębieńsko will reduce coal imports from countries such as Russia, the US and Australia.  The existing infrastructure, the release indicated, could be partially used in constructing a new mining plant. After taking over the project in Dębińsko, Prairie plans to increase its annual production of coke coal by between 210 and 260 million metric tonnes, it said in the statement.