RPT-Czech miner NWR raises coking coal reserves 50 pct

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Czech mining group New World Resources (NWR) raised its coking coal reserve estimates by 50 percent on Wednesday and said it could keep up production almost twice as long as earlier forecast.

Dutch-registered NWR, which is considering an initial share offering (IPO) in London, Prague and Warsaw, said it had 218 million tonnes of coal reserves at mines operated by its fully owned subsidiary OKD.

That secures stable production at the biggest Czech thermal coal miner for at least 20 years, NWR said.

In May, the company estimated its reserves at 150.4 million tonnes, mostly consisting of coking coal but with some steam coal, and said it would exhaust the mines within 11.5 years.

All the newly-discovered reserves are coking coal.

In 2006, NWR sold 7.8 million tonnes of coking coal, 5.7 million tonnes of steam coal and 1.3 million tonnes of coke.

NWR said in November it would invest around 300 million euros ($441 million) over the next three years in mining equipment to enhance efficiency and to reach resources that otherwise could not be explored.

A spokesman for NWR Joe Cook said the revised estimates had not fully taken account of the investments and there would be another update next spring.

NWR had said it planned an IPO in late 2007. It had been expected to raise up to 18 billion crowns ($1.02 billion) through the offering of a stake of up to 33 percent, combining existing and new shares, according to analysts' forecasts.

But the company said on Wednesday it had not made a final decision on the IPO, reiterating its line of the past weeks.

NWR sells almost all its coking coal, coke and steam coal production into the Czech market.

(Reporting by Jan Korselt, editing by Anthony Barker)

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