§ 36. Mr. Hardyasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will publish in the Official Report the location and number of new provings of coal reserves which have been established during the last two years, and with his estimate of the size o f the reserves available for extraction in each case.
§ Mr. EadieIn the period between July 1974 and November 1976 the NCB drilled 290 deep bore-holes of which 174 were in areas of possible new mines.
The Selby reserves were located some three to four years ago. The other major new prospects located, together with the likely potentional economically recoverable reserves, are:
Vale of Belvoir and East Leicestershire 500 million tons Park (Staffs) 100 million tons S. West Coventry 100 million tons Margam (S. Wales) 30 million tons Musselburgh (Scotland) 50 million tons A large number of other new prospects have been the subject of initial exploration, but, in these cases, it is not yet possible to specify the new reserves. There has also been extensive exploration at a large number of existing mines as a result of which their reserves have been extended by approximately 500 million tons.