Anglo American has announced that it has acquired 100% ownership of Peace River Coal Limited Partnership (PRC), which comprises the Trend metallurgical coal mine and various exploration leases in British Columbia, Canada, through the acquisition of the 25.17% interest in PRC that it did not already own.
Anglo American has completed the acquisition of the 12.18% interest in PRC held by Northern Energy & Mining Inc. for a cash consideration of US$ 76 million and has completed the acquisition of the 12.99% interest held by Hillsborough Resources Ltd. for US$ 81 million plus US$ 9 million to acquire Hillsborough’s royalty rights relating to PRC.
Seamus French, CEO of Anglo American’s metallurgical coal business, said: “PRC is a large and high quality metallurgical coal resource of approximately 1 billion t, on an attributable basis, supported by well-developed power, rail and port infrastructure. We see significant resource upside and plan to invest in further exploration studies to ascertain its full long-term potential. In the near term, we will be progressing a feasibility study to increase production from 1 million tpa to 3.5 million tpa by 2015.”