Allegiance Coal Limited announce the first set of results from the carbonisation tests undertaken on the Black Warrior Mine's premium Mary Lee and Blue Creek coking coals. The first test was a 50:50 blend of Mary Lee and Blue Creek which are selling as a blended product. These two coal seams share the same properties and variously throughout the Black Warrior Basin come together as a single coal seam.

They are typically sold together under the world recognised and respected `Blue Creek' brand. The large scale semi-industrial carbonisation test undertaken in a moveable wall oven at DMT Germany, delivered a CSR result of 61% making it comparable with high vol A hard coking coals from the US. Two additional carbonisation tests will be undertaken on each of the Mary Lee and Blue Creek seams individually purely for coal quality data purposes.

The two sold Black Warrior cargos of Mary Lee Blue Creek were priced at a discount to high-vol B indices at the time of each sale due to the lack of respected laboratory data to support coke strength.