Rinehart’s Hancock weighs $3.3 billion iron ore mine project
Hancock acquired a 51% interest in the Mt Bevan project from Legacy Iron Ore Ltd. and Hawthorn Resources.
Platts reports that the global operations headquarters of US giant Peabody Energy (NYSE:BTU) will be relocated to Brisbane following the acquisition of Australia’s Macarthur.
Peabody raised $3.1 billion with the sale of senior notes on Monday and now owns 77.6% of Macarthur after ArcelorMittal pulled out of its joint $5 billion bid for the coking coal producer, just days after the target’s top shareholder accepted the offer.
Peabody Energy late on Monday sold $3.1 billion of senior notes in two parts in the
144a private placement market, according to IFR, a Thomson Reuters service.
Some observers were skeptical when Peabody and Arcelor raised their bid at at time coking coal prices have been falling and according to a new report could pull back to $240/tonne towards the end of next year.
With the inclusion of Macarthur, Peabody projects pro forma production of 45 million to 50 million tons by 2014 to 2015. If these pro forma volumes were in place today, Peabody would be the second largest metallurgical coal producer in Australia and in the top tier of global coking coal producers.
Peabody is the world’s largest private-sector coal company with 2010 sales of 246 million tons and nearly $7 billion in revenues, Peabody fuels 10% of US power and 2% of worldwide electricity.
