Bathurst cuts board size while it waits for coal market turnaround

Friday 14th November 2014

Bathurst Resources, which was last year granted consent for an open cast mine on the West Coast's Denniston Plateau, has trimmed down its board size as it clamps down on costs while waiting for the global coking coal market to improve.

Directors David Frow and Rob Lord have resigned from the board with immediate effect after a review of the company's costs and efficiency initiatives prompted a restructure, Wellington based Bathurst said in a statement. Marshall Maine resigned as joint company secretary, but remains chief financial officer.

The company is holding its annual meeting in Wellington today, and this year wrote off the $449.9 million value of its Buller coal project, which it plans to keep on hold until coking coal prices improve.

The miner had a protracted battle to win resource consent for the Denniston Plateau mine, with environmental groups opposing the application all the way to the Supreme Court.

Bathurst operates several smaller mines in Westland and Southland that supply the local market and provide some cashflow, but its primary strategy has always been to develop the large resource of high quality coking coal, an input to the steel-making process that is highly sought after globally, but has been hit by the global downturn in demand for steel, driven in part by the slowdown in the Chinese construction sector.

The shares last traded at 3.8 cents, having slumped 84 percent over the past 12 months.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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