JFE Steel to Get 20% Interest in Premium Hard Coking Mine in Australia

JFE Steel announced on Thursday the firm acquires high grade coking coal interest in Australia. The firm gets 20% interest in Byerwen coal project, which is newly developing open cut mine with annual 10 million tonnes of output, from Q Coal of Australia. JFE Steel expects the investment will be around 50 billion yen including equity purchase and development cost, which is one of the largest raw material investment of the firm. The firm agreed with Q Coal to purchase annual 2 million tonnes of the production from 2012. With the investment, JFE Steel’s coking coal equity increases to around 15% of the requirement. The firm tries to increase the equity rate to 30% for coking coal and iron ore to stabilize the procurement.

The premium hard coking coal mine located in northeast of Queensland will produce 10 million tonnes. The mine has advantage to use demurrage free Abbot Point port to ship the coal. The mine can ship the coal stably through the infrastructure despite of limited coal infrastructure availability in Queensland.

The mine is estimated to have more than 300 million tonnes of resource, which enables more than 20 years of mine life, while the resource estimation could increase depending on exploration. JFE Steel will sign 10 years purchase contract from 2012 from the mine.

JFE Steel’s coking coal equity increases from current just more than 5% of the requirement through the investment. The firm tries to increase the equity to 30% both for iron ore and coking coal while the firm already has 15% equity for iron ore as well.