On December 21, Australian coking coal producer Beacon Hill Resources announced that it has entered into a joint venture (JV) with Midwest Africa Limited (MAL) to fund the exploration and development of Coal Tenement 2001L in Tete Province of Mozambique. Beacon Hill will take an 80 percent interest in the property from the current licence owner Midwest Africa Limited (MAL).
The licence covers an area of 184 km² and is located in the heart of the highly prospective coking coal basin of the Songo area of Tete Province. The area is in close proximity to significant existing coal projects, like Jindal Steel & Power's Chingodzi coal project, which has an estimated resource of approximately 720 million mt of coking and thermal coal.
Beacon Hill owns the Minas Moatize coal mine in the Tete coking coal region with an 80 million gross ton resource base. The company's intention is that all future contributions to the JV will be funded by existing cash resources and future cash flows generated from Minas Moatize.