Vitrinite has hit the ground running at its newly acquired Callan Coking Coal project, with drilling underway to identify a mineable target at the former BHP asset.

The company officially took ownership last month of the Bowen Basin project, formerly known as Picardy, which hosts a coking coal resource of approximately 570 million tonnes.

Vitrinite chief operating officer Mick Callan said the company saw the project, 27km from Dysart, as a good fit with its assets.

“It’s one of the largest MDLs (mineral development licences) in Queensland. It has a big strike of Rangal coal through the middle of it and BHP has done a lot of work on it,” he said.

“We’re lucky enough to have been considered to have a look at it and were successful (in acquiring it).

“For us, it adds a big coking coal asset to our portfolio and we believe it has blending synergies with our other assets.”

Vitrinite aims to carry out a bulk sampling operation as early as next year to determine the coal’s suitability for blending.

Sitting between the Middlemount and Lake Vermont coal operations, Callan Coking Coal is also near Vitrinite’s producing Vulcan coal complex.

Vulcan is producing about 2Mtpa, with mining currently focused on the Jupiter pit. Vitrinite is working on detailed designs and approvals to build a rail loop and wash plant there.

Until then, coal from that site is being processed at nearby operations – where Mr Callan said the PLV (premium low vol) product was quite sought after for its quality and its ability to blend up other coal.

While Vitrinite is also advancing its Wilsons Creek project to the north and Karin Basin asset near Clermont, Mr Callan believed Callan Coking Coal would jump ahead in its development pipeline.

“We’re still committed to the other two, but we see the potential at Callan Coking Coal to get into that one as a priority. So it will be the next mine that Vitrinite brings on,” he said.

And it’s no coincidence that the company’s new project shares a name with its chief operating officer.

“It was the shareholders of Vitrinite who decided to call it Callan Coking Coal, named after myself,” Mr Callan said.

“It’s obviously very humbling to have it named after myself and my family. In Nick’s (Vitrinite co-founder and managing director Nick Williams) words on LinkedIn, as a recognition of the hard work that they see I’ve put into Vitrinite over the years. So it’s a reward for that and probably doesn’t hurt that it’s got the CCC! (alliteration).”