The
Chinese-controlled company has benefited from an improvement in the
global marketplace and demand for high quality semi-soft coking and
thermal coal since 2017.
Yancoal recorded profit before tax of $539 million in the June 2018
half year, a $557 million improvement on the $18 million loss it
registered in the same period a year earlier.
Its turnaround
included contributions from the Hunter Valley Operations (51 per cent
ownership) and Mount Thorley Warkworth mines (82.9 per cent), which it
acquired from Rio Tinto through the Coal & Allied deal.
Yancoal reported that consistently strong extraction and delivery
rates at Moolarben, the Hunter Valley Operations and Mount Thorley
Warkworth increased saleable coal production to more than double the
previous year.
Its total run-of-mine (ROM) coal produced was 23.29Mt and total share of saleable coal 18.13Mt.
Yancoal
chairman Baocai Zhang said the acquisition of Coal & Allied
continued to prove the company’s strategic foresight in negotiating a
deal capable of strengthening its scale of operations in preparation for
the global coal market’s eventual return.
“Yancoal’s financial
turnaround is directly attributable to the performance of our tier-one
assets and the ability of our management team to streamline and improve
established operations,” Zhang said.
“As we build upon our
success, we will continue to pursue a robust agenda of development and
brownfield exploration. Following preliminary studies, we have
commissioned further drilling and technical assessments to consider the
feasibility of a potential underground opportunity at Mount Thorley
Warkworth.”
Yancoal will continue to focus on sustaining its market growth, while also paying down debt in the year ahead.
Chief
executive officer Reinhold Schmidt said Yancoal would maximise new
opportunities at a time of global coal market price improvements.
“The
addition of a full six months of attributable production from the new
Moolarben underground has also positively contributed to the Company’s
ability to meet increasing demand for high quality low-cost coal in our
key markets of Korea, Japan and China,” Schmidt said.
“By
successfully restructuring our operations to implement new fleet
efficiencies and revise existing mine plans in the year prior, we are
now benefitting from improved extraction and delivery rates across our
open cut operations.”
Yancoal declared a maiden interim dividend of $130 million to reflect the strong performance.