Coal news and updates

Coal miner Glencore to cut 120 jobs, reduce production

Coal miner Glencore is cutting 120 jobs and will significantly reduce its Australian production in response to falling global demand.

The company confirmed the full-time positions were going but would not give details as to where, saying it was still in consultation with staff.

Glencore operates numerous coal mines in New South Wales and Queensland. It is calling the cuts "production initiatives".

Glencore says coal exports will be reduced by 15 million tonnes this year "to more closely align our coal output with current customer demand".

It is understood the Australian operations produced around 100 million tonnes last year, which makes today's announcement in the vicinity of a 15 per cent cut.

Projects were also being deferred to preserve capital.

The planned expansion to the Newlands and Oakey Creek mines and Collinsville open-pit mine in Queensland were being reassessed.

Operations at the controversial Bulga open-pit mine in the Hunter Valley were also under review.

The company has already held temporary mine shut-downs over the Christmas period in response to global over-supply and weak prices.

Staff were affected then; those with insufficient leave were forced to bring leave forward.

Today's announcement would also hurt the Queensland Government, which was already smarting from a drop in royalties.

Elsewhere, it has not been good news from rival mining giant Vale, which posted a full-year net income of $US657 million, well short of analyst expectations of $US2.5 billion.

Vale wrote down $US1.2 billion in assets in 2014, mainly due to impairments taken on fertiliser projects in Brazil and the Simandou iron ore project in Guinea.

source: http://www.abc.net.au