Wesfarmers settles Q2 hard coking coal contract price at $104 per tonne

Wesfarmers Resources has concluded the contract price for its Curragh hard coking coal at $104 per tonne fob Australia for the June quarter, the Australian miner said on Wednesday April 29.

This is down $7 per tonne from the first quarter of this year. The decrease, however, was in line with the drop seen in the benchmark settled between Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp and Anglo American, at $109.50 per tonne fob.

During January-March, Curragh produced 2.2 million tonnes of metallurgical coal, down 8.3% year-on-year and almost 5% quarter-on-quarter due to "wet weather impacts in January". However, production increased by 9.3% to 9.2 million tonnes for the 12 months to March 31, according to the statement.

Arbitrator blocks CCX talks to sell Colombia mines to Blackstone

An international arbitrator ruled that Brazil's CCX Carvão da Colombia may not enter talks to sell three coal-mining projects in Colombia to investors represented by the Blackstone Group, CCX's main shareholder said on Wednesday. 

The emergency injunction an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) arbitrator is in place until it can make a final ruling on a request by Yildirim Holding, according to a statement sent to Brazil's securities regulator CVM by Centennial Asset Management, CCX's controlling shareholder. 

The ruling also prohibits negotiations over the three mine projects with any other company besides Yildirim which entered into an asset-purchase agreement for the mines with CCX on April 26, 2014, CCX said. 

CCX has said it still has pending issues in its asset sale talks with Yildirim, but that the Blackstone-led offer is "more immediate and economically more interesting." 

Centennial Asset Management is owned by tycoon and former Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista. CCX is one of the last pieces of his EBX energy, mining, shipbuilding and port operations group which crumbled in the face of missed targets, bankruptcies and falling commodities prices in 2013 and 2014. 

The ICC arbitrator denied another Yildirim request to block the sale of CCX stock. 

Earlier this month, CCX received an $170-million unsolicited offer for the Cañaverales and Papayal openpit coal mining projects and an underground mining project from a group of sovereign investment funds and other large investors represented by Blackstone, the world's largest private-equity investor. 

All three projects are in Colombia's La Guajira department.

BY: REUTERS
EDITED BY: CREAMER MEDIA REPORTER 
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