ANGLO American CEO Duncan Wanblad said he would be “pragmatic” about selling the firm’s metallurgical coal assets in Australia amid a dispute with buyer, Peabody Energy.
In November, Anglo American announced it would sell the bulk of its coal assets to the US coal miner for $3.8bn in cash. But in May this year, Peabody raised concerns about completing the deal saying an ‘ignition event’ (fire) in March at one of the Anglo mines for sale – Moranbah North – made financial guarantors feel uneasy.
Peabody said it could walk away from the transaction on the basis a material adverse condition had been triggered. As Moranbah North was not yet producing coal until the Queensland authorities in Australia approved its reopening, the entire deal for Anglo’s metallurgical coal mines has become uncertain.
“I’d really like for this deal to conclude with Peabody,” Wanblad said in an interview on Thursday. “I will absolutely be pragmatic and practical. But of course, that’s not in my hands at this point in time. It’s up to Peabody,” he added.
“In the event Peabody elected not to complete, I continue to hold the view that it would be wrong,” said Wanblad. “We don’t believe there is a discount, and secondly, we had a really strong auction. If we have to take it back to auction, it wouldn’t be my first prize.”
In the meantime, Anglo was incurring about $55m a month in keeping Moranbah North on hold ($45m) and Grosvenor ($10m), another mine closed following a fire later in 2024.
Wanblad said the group would “hopefully get a restart later this year, early next year, on Moranbah”. There was also “good progress” at Grosvenor. “So in the next couple of weeks, hopefully we’ll get the permission to go back underground,” he said.
Wanblad said earlier on Thursday, in response to questions while presenting Anglo’s interim results, that he didn’t know where “Peabody’s head is on this right now”, but added that the company had been in contact “every second day, if not daily”.
In a separate call with media Wanblad also said there had been “a number of unsolicited inbound requests to participate based on the process”, but that the group remained committed to its sale agreement with Peabody. “There is no Plan B,” he added. “We clearly cannot and have not engaged with any potential other third party buyers.
“I guess what I’m saying is that in the unfortunate event Peabody chooses not to complete here, I think there’s still a very strong interest in these assets. They’re very high quality … I don’t think you’re going to see a package like this come to the market anytime soon.”
Anglo’s steelmaking portfolio consists primarily of an 88% interest in the Moranbah North; a 70% interest in the Capcoal joint venture; an 86.36% interest in the Roper Creek joint venture; a 51.0% interest in the Dawson joint venture, Dawson South joint venture, Dawson South Exploration joint venture and the Theodore South joint venture; and a 50% interest in the Moranbah South joint venture.
The Queensland authorities had not yet given the greenlight for a reopening but Wanblad said preparatory work for production was in full swing.
“We’ve now got all the way to the point where, the regulators are really happy with the fact that we’re back underground,” he said. “We’re doing some meaningful maintenance, we’re doing the development work in terms of the future panels of the mine and so on.”
