The board of Coalspur Mines Ltd. has approved a $458 million capital budget for the Vista coal mine project near Hinton, Alta. Construction will take place in one stage instead of two, as originally planned.

Taggart Global has been selected as the EPC (engineer, procure, construct) contractor. The international engineering and construction company was awarded a $226 million fixed price contract.

Taggart will be responsible for the design, construction and commissioning of the coal handling, preparation and processing plant, the overland conveyors and the load-out infrastructure.

The development plan focuses on Phase 1 of Vista, and will support a six million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) capacity thermal coal facility. The facility, to be completed in mid-2015, will produce three million tonnes of clean coal in 2015, and be capable of producing six Mtpa from 2016 onwards.