The Czech coal company, New World Resources (NWR), has announced that it expects to complete the sale of its unprofitable OKK coking coal plant by the end of the year.
The company has been in talks with a number of parties to sell the unit for cash, hoping to close the deal by the end of 2013. "We are in the final phase of discussions with potential buyers and I expect that the transaction will be completed in the coming months," NWR executive director, Jan Fabian, commented.
Sale of coking plant
The unprofitable company’s net loss for the April – June 2013 period widened to a record US$ 421 million. In a business optimisation press release announced earlier this year, an operational review suggested steps to ensure the existing business remained cash neutral in the current pricing environment, which included the sale of the OKK coking plant.
“As a result of an operational review NWR has started the process of divesting its coke operations, OKK. We are also running stress tests to identify individual mines, or sections of individual mines that could be idled or divested,” the company announced in May this year. In the same press release, NWR reiterated their strategic target to become Europe’s leading miner and marketer of metallurgical coal by 2017, despite the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the Czech mining and heavy industries over the past two decades.
Edited from various sources by Katie Woodward