While the market speculates about when Whitehaven Coal will bid for Coalworks, the likely takeover target says it will get on with developing its NSW coal assets in 2012.

Massive international demand for Australian coal led to a busy year in 2011 for consolidation in Australia’s coal industry and now Coalworks is expected to be swallowed up.

The coal developer has appointed Pitt Capital Partners to “consider the implications” of the recent $5.1 billion merger between Whitehaven Coal and billionaire Nathan Tinkler’s Aston Resources.

Aston owns Boardwalk Resources, which owns a 19.9 per cent stake in Coalworks, with Mr Tinkler’s Boardwalk also having the right to earn a 50 per cent interest in the former’s Ferndale project in the NSW Hunter Valley.

As well as Ferndale, Coalworks’ assets include the Vickery South project in the Gunnedah basin – where Whitehaven and Aston owned assets – and its flagship Oakland North project in southern NSW.

Coalworks chairman Wayne Mitchell on Wednesday said the Whitehaven-Aston transaction demonstrated the valuable and strategic nature of Coalworks’ “high quality project pipeline, given its position at the core of Boardwalks own portfolio”.

2011 had been an exciting year in its path toward becoming an independent coal producer, including drilling at Ferndale and studies on its Oaklands coal-to-liquids project, Mr Mitchell said.

The company would lodge a preliminary environmental assessment and bankable feasibility study for Vickery South in 2012, he said.

It would move into a pre-feasibility study at Ferndale in partnership with Boardwalk Resources.

This week, the company appointed Gunnedah Basin coal producers group chairman Geoff Kidd as its chief operating officer.

Coalworks shares rose one cent to 60 cents on Wednesday.