NWR in talks to mine land with 20 mln tonnes of coal

PRAGUE Oct 27 (Reuters) - New World Resources (NWR) is negotiating with officials in the north-east of the Czech Republic about mining an area with an estimated 20 million tonnes of mostly coking coal, the company and town representatives said.

NWR unit OKD, which runs the country's hard coal mines, said it wants to extend its operations to get at coal located under the Stare Mesto district in the city of Karvina, which would mean covering costs to move around 500 people from the area.

"We would like to conclude the negotiations this year and we could ideally start extracting in or after 2016," OKD spokesman Vladislav Sobol.

Czech miner NWR confirmed on Thursday it was on track to produce 11 million tonnes of coal in 2011 and sell 10.3 million tonnes, with higher-margin coking coal falling to less than half of that due to temporary production problems.