North Korea has discovered hundreds of thousands of tons of coal reserves at the Kaechon Area Coal Mining Complex in South Pyongan Province, state-run outlet DPRK Today reported on Monday.

The North has put extensive work into extracting deposits of the coal in the northern part of South Phyongan Province, where the country’s largest anthracite deposits lie, according to data from the South Korean Ministry of Unification (MOU).

A DPRK geological institute deemed the area worthy of large-scale coal reserve exploration after carrying out “extensive and comprehensive geophysical surveys on coalfields located in the region”, Rodong Sinmun,a ruling