Bowen Coking Coal declared top bidder in Bluff coal mine sale

Dipping coal prices sent the mine into voluntary administration shortly after it opened. Now a frontrunner has paid a $250,000 deposit in a bid to reopen it.

A company with several mines in the Bowen Basin has emerged as the frontrunner in the sale of mothballed Bluff mine, between Emerald and Rockhampton.

A company with several mines in the Bowen Basin has laid down a $250,000 deposit to become the frontrunner in obtaining another.

In a statement to ASX, Bowen Coking Coal said it was pleased to be awarded “preferred bidder status” in the sale of the Bluff open pit coal mine between Emerald and Rockhampton.

It said it had agreed with the managers and appointed receivers, Carabella Resources, to carry out “due diligence” over the next 28 days to work towards acquiring the mine’s assets.

The assets include a mining lease for up to 1.8 million metric tonnes of ultra low volatile PCI coal per year, and 1931 hectares of grazing land on two adjacent homesteads.

The mine opened in the first quarter of 2019 with 1.4 million tonnes extracted until operations stopped in November 2020 when the previous owners went into voluntary administration.

Appointed contractors MACA Mining said at the time it was owed $34.7 million for services provided at the mine.

“Shortly after operations commenced, metallurgical coal prices started a downward trend, which persisted until late 2020,” Bowen Coking Coal stated.

It said road trucks were transporting coal from the mine to nearby Cook Colliery where it was washed and then railed to a Gladstone coal terminal and shipped to Asia, largely to Japanese and Korean steelmakers.

Bowen Coking Coal already wholly owns Broadmeadow East, Isaac River, Coorarah and Comet Ridge coking coal Bowen Basin mines, and a 90 per cent stake in Hillalong.

It also has a joint venture with Stanmore Coal Limited on two more coking coal mines with a 15 per cent interest in Lilyvale and 5 per cent in Mackenzie.

Managing director and CEO Gerhard Redelinghuys, in a separate statement to ASX, said the company aspired to be a “low-cost independent producer of high-quality coking coal”.