Granting the Debiensko license is seen as a significant milestone in NWR’s strategy to develop both long-term production growth and reserve growth through regional expansion and organic growth at its existing mines in the Czech Republic. The Debiensko mine is located in southern Poland near NWR’s existing operations in the Czech Republic, and is estimated to have approximately 190 million metric tons (mt) of reserves, substantially all of which are coking coal.

NWR’s mining concept for Debiensko 1 envisages annual production of approximately 4 million mt of coking coal, equivalent to 60% of the company’s annual coking coal production of 6.8 million mt in 2007. NWR estimates that an investment of between €600 million and €800 million over the next four to six years will be needed to develop the mine to its full production capacity.