Buyers walk away from Sanjeev Gupta’s Tahmoor Coal Mine

The falling coal price is having an impact across the mining market. Picture: iStock

Challenges raising capital following the falling coal price has meant some of the groups that had been looking at Sanjeev Gupta’s Tahmoor Coal Mine have now walked away.

DataRoom understands that suitors have put their pens down with the coking coal price falling below $US200 a tonne.

Management teams were looking to pick up the mine, but needed financing in place and capital.

Among the groups that had been around the hoop were M ­Resources, Golden Energy, Trafigura and Mercuria Energy.

Mr Gupta had placed the mine up for sale in a desperate quest to gain cash as his empire, GFG ­Alliance, shows stronger signs of unravelling.

Tahmoor, in NSW, has approval to produce up to four million tonnes of coal annually.

Any suitor looking at the asset would probably want to secure control at a bargain price.

The mine has been described as low-quality and troublesome due to being an underground ­operation, and is worth closer to $US300m ($500m) than Mr Gupta’s $800m asking price.

The falling coal price is having an impact across the mining market, with Peabody Energy reviewing whether it can extract itself from a $US3.8bn deal yet to settle to buy Anglo American’s Australian coal mines as the cost of borrowings on a transaction rises and its own share price falls.

And Glencore in February reported lower earnings as the price for commodity fell.

Also set to hit the market later this year is the $US3bn-plus Kestrel coal mine, owned by EMR Capital and Adaro Energy, through Bank of America and Macquarie Capital.

It is the world’s largest underground coking or metallurgical coal mine, producing about 7.1 million tonnes annually.

In Queensland’s Bowen Basin, 50km northeast of Emerald, the mine was purchased from Rio Tinto by the Owen Hegarty-chaired EMR Capital in 2018 for $US2.25bn.