The Dunlevy South coal occurrence is located east of Dunlevy Creek and north of Williston Lake, approximately 28 kilometres northwest of the community of Hudson's Hope, in the Liard Mining Division.
The Peace River Coalfield extends nearly 400 kilometres along the Northern Rocky Mountain inner foothills from the Alberta border, 180 kilometres east of Prince George, to 130 kilometres north of Hudson’s Hope at Pink Mountain. Medium to low volatile bituminous coal seams of economic thickness and continuity are hosted by the Lower Cretaceous Gething (up to 1036 metres thick) and Gates (up to 280 metres thick) sedimentary formations of the Bullhead and Fort St. John groups, respectively. The Gething Formation represents the dominant coal-bearing strata north of the Sukunka-Bullmoose area (MINFILE 093P 001, 093P 014) west of Tumbler Ridge.
A drillhole in 1973 (D-73-1) intersected 41 coal seams ranging from 0.03 to 0.8 metre in thickness, of which 10 are greater than 0.3 metre thick (Coal Assessment Report 513). The coal occurs in the Lower Cretaceous Gething Formation (Bullhead Group) interbedded with mudstones, fine-grained sandstones, and siltstones of fluvial-deltaic origin. The Gething Formation averages 370 metres in thickness and has a lesser amount of sandstone than other Bullhead Group members. It is deposited in well-developed cyclothems, which range in intervals from 1.5 to 7.5 metres in thickness. A typical cyclic order of deposition consists of: dark grey mudstones and shales; shale and siltstones with sandstone interbeds; very fine to medium-grained sandstones; silty, sandy mudstones and argillaceous silty sandstone; lithified seat earths; black soft mudstones; and black fissile carbonaceous shale.
The northwest-trending structure consists of several broad to tight folds cut by north- to northwest-trending, south-dipping thrust faults in the east and southwest.
The Williston area was first explored in detail by Utah Mines Limited in 1970s. This included the search for large reserves of metallurgical coal in the land north from Williston Lake along the Dunlevy syncline, past the Chowade River. In 1971, the area along the east slope of Butler Ridge was obtained by Amax Coal Company. They drilled four holes north of Ruddy Creek to depths of approximately 365 metres. Several coal seams were intersected with a few in the order of 1 to 1.5 metres.
During May 1973, Utah Mines Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Utah International Inc., completed one drillhole (D-73-1) to a depth of 246 metres in the Dunlevy Creek area. This hole was abandoned before entering the bottom Gething-Dresser contact and cut 41 thin coal seams.
By the early 1980s, the Williston area was being explored by Cyprus Anvil Mining Corporation and Hudson's Bay Oil and Gas Company Limited. In 1981, a regional mapping program and 11 diamond drill holes (1684.7 metres) were completed. Three holes within the East block of licenses (MINFILE 094B 024) did not penetrate through the top of the Gething Formation, and no coal seams were intersected. In the West block of licenses (MINFILE 094B 025), a 3.0-metre coal and shale interval was intersected in the middle of the Gething Formation, at a depth of 22.5 metres.
Exploration programs identified four potential areas, totalling a possible 35 million tonnes of clean coal. The largest area, south of Dunlevy Lake, had a possible regional reserve of 15 million tonnes; a possible 5 million tonnes was identified from the area on the west slope of Butler Ridge; another possible 5 million tonnes was identified from the Trojan seam on the east side of Butler Ridge; and a further 10 million tonnes was identified from syncline and anticline structures to the east of Butler Ridge (Property File - Cyprus Anvil, J. Loader, 1980).
In December 2010, the Government of British Columbia committed to develop a plan to manage the seven northern ecotype caribou in the South Peace River area. One project undertaken to assist development of the Peace Northern Caribou Plan was a modelling exercise to develop alternate development scenarios. This project integrated the available scientific information and expert opinion to predict the future abundance of caribou. It predicted future caribou numbers based on projections of industrial build-out by the coal, forestry, wind and oil and gas sectors. The report from this project, entitled "South Peace Northern Caribou Management Model", was completed in 2012 and is available at https://www.env.gov.bc.ca/wld/speciesconservation/nc/documents/Final_Wilson%20%202012%20%20PNCP%20management%20model.pdf.
NWP Coal Canada Ltd, a subsidiary of Jameson Resources Limited, continued exploration and development of the Peace River coal projects: Dunlevy, Graham River, Peace Reach and Carbon East. During 2013, NWP focused on Dunlevy, refining tenure boundaries and advancing geological models. The company was issued coal licenses late in 2013 and planned to proceed with a two-stage drilling program on the western limb of the Dunlevy syncline in 2014. In 2014, Dunlevy Energy Inc., a subsidiary of Jameson Resources Ltd., drilled on the western limb of the Dunlevy syncline at their Dunlevy property on the north side of Williston Lake.
