Australian Mount Pleasant 10.5 mil mt/yr thermal coal mine to see first coal this month: MACH

18-December-2018

The 10.5 million mt/year Mount Pleasant thermal coal project in Australia remains on schedule to see first coal this month, a spokeswoman for owner MACH Energy said Tuesday.

“At this stage we are on track for first coal,” she said, adding that a more detailed update will be available next week.

The project, which was bought from Rio Tinto in August 2016 for $220.7 million plus royalties, is based in Australia’s thermal coal dominant region of the Hunter Valley and is planned to export via the Port of Newcastle.

First production from Mount Pleasant had previously been scheduled by MACH for the first quarter of 2018. And, earlier in the year, rail operator Aurizon announced a haulage agreement with MACH for 8 million mt/year from the mine to port as well as domestic power stations, and, at the time, said it expected railings to begin in the July-December period for a term of 10 years.

MACH was established for the acquisition of Mount Pleasant. It is a private company and a subsidiary of Droxford International Limited, part of the Salim Group.

In May, MACH formed the Mount Pleasant Joint Venture with Japan Coal Development Australia with the latter acquiring 5%. As part of the JV, JCDA’s parent company Japan Coal Development said it would acquire Mount Pleasant Newcastle benchmark product MTP 6000 coal from the mine under a coal offtake agreement and also undertake exclusive marketing activities for the mine to a select group of Japanese power utilities as well as undertake non-exclusive marketing activities for other customers in Japan.

MACH will market its share of the coal to non-exclusive customers in Japan as well as to the rest of the world, JCDA said at the time.

Source: S&P GLOBAL PLATTS