Guildford Coal Limited
(ASX:GUF) has been granted a mining licence in Mongolia.
In a statement Guildford said the licence and South Gobi Project coal deposits provide the necessary building blocks for the potential start-up of an open cut mine operating halfway through the year.
Its JORC resource has also been upgraded to 70.4 million tonnes of coking coal, up from 63.1 million tonnes.
Scoping studies for the start-up operation on the project are expected to be finished early next month.
Guildford reported a loss of $4.8 million in the year to June 2011.
