Whitehaven Coal has bounced back from extreme weather earlier this year, boosting coal production by 47% in the June quarter.
The northern NSW-based miner produced 1.47 million tonnes of coal, compared to 1.006 million tonnes (Mt) in the June quarter last year.
Total coal sales jumped 82% to 1.89 Mt, compared to 1.04 Mt for the corresponding period in 2010.
Total coal sales during the March quarter were only 1.315 Mt, after earthquake damage to Japanese coal handling and steel plants led to deliveries being deferred.
It is better news for the company after, in April, reducing its full year underlying net profit guidance to $70 million from $83-88 million, and in February posting a first half net loss of $35.12 million.
Whitehaven’s June quarter included export thermal coal sales of 1.563 Mt, including 391,000 tonnes of purchased coal. Exports of metallurgical coal were 277,000 tonnes. Whitehaven had to buy more than 1.47 Mt of coal during the March quarter to meet contracts, due to lost production from wet weather.
The miner said it expected to achieve an average metallurgical coal price of about $US200 a tonne in the September quarter.
The company operates four open-cut mines in NSW’s Gunnedah basin, on the western slopes northwest of Sydney. That includes the Tarrawonga project that will be expanded following an agreement in May with Japanese petroleum and energy giant Idemitsu Kosan Co Ltd. Whitehaven also is developing a $300 million underground mine at Narrabri and the open-cut Vickery mine. The four operating mines are producing at an annual rate of about six million tonnes of saleable coal.
The company put itself up for sale in October last year but then dropped out of the market in May, saying none of the takeover proposals were good enough.
Whitehaven said the federal government’s carbon pricing scheme would cost it about $1.60 per tonne of saleable coal, after fellow coal miner Macarthur said on Monday the tax would cost it $1.40 a tonne.
Whitehaven shares added three cents to $6.58 on Tuesday.
AAP
