Mecrus Resources wants to do sampling and drilling for coal, gold, silver, platinum, sands and other minerals.

News of the application to the Department of Primary Industry earlier this week sparked concerns from environmental group Friends of the Earth about the prospect of methane gas extraction if significant coal reserves were discovered.

There are fears in other areas of Australia about poisons leaking into aquifers used by farmers and rural communities. A recent application in the Otways was abandoned after a protest meeting at Deans Marsh.

Mecrus managing director Barry Richards has told The Standard it was unlikely marketable quantities of coal would be found in the proposed explorations.

“We do not believe that any occurrence of coal in these areas will meet our assessment criteria,” he said. “We are at the very early stages and need to go through the normal government approval processes before any exploration licences are granted.”

“If the licences are granted we will be looking at a period of about two years, during which we will undertake desktop evaluation of geological data to determine the quantity and quality of the minerals in these areas.

“Environmental assessment is a major part of this evaluation process.”

The applications are for land areas in Woolsthorpe, Broadwater-Hawkesdale, Heywood-Macarthur, Cobden and Garvoc and each application covers about 480 square kilometres.

“Our focus is on the study of economically-viable minerals and our exploration licence applications are general in nature,” Mr Richards said.

Friends of the Earth has urged south-west communities to consider making submissions on the applications before the end of August.