Peabody Energy announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell the majority of its Burton coking coal mine and related infrastructure to the Lenton Joint Venture for approximately $11 million.
The Lenton Joint Venture, of which New Hope Coal is a 90 percent participant, controls mining tenements that adjoin the Burton mine, which is located in Queensland, Australia’s Bowen Basin and has reserves amounting to 164 million tons of coking coal.
The Lenton Joint Venture will assume the reclamation obligations associated with the assets being acquired by the Lenton Joint Venture, reducing Peabody's asset retirement obligation by approximately US$53 million while also releasing an estimated $30 million of restricted cash.
The Burton mine entered a care, maintenance and rehabilitation phase in December 2016. The transaction is conditional on a number of regulatory and other requirements and completion is expected to take place in the first half of 2018.