Gunvor buys 33pct of US coal mine for USD 400 million

Friday, 21 Oct 2011

Interfax reported that Gunvor the commodities trader founded by Gennady Timchenko and Torbjorn Tornqvist has acquired a coal asset in the United States.

Pinesdale LLC a unit of Gunvor Group has paid USD 400 million for a one-third interest in the Signal Peak coal mine in Montana, one of the sellers. FirstEnergy will receive USD 260 million of the selling price and the remainder will go to private coal firm Boich.

FirstEnergy and Boich bought Signal Peak in 2008. At the time, FirstEnergy paid USD 125 million for a 45% stake in the project. The deal with Gunvor calls for creating a new corporate entity, Global Mining Holding Company in which the three investors will each own a one-third interest.

Mr Wayne Boich Jr president and chief executive of Boich Companies said "One of the key advantages that Gunvor Group brings to this venture is the ability to utilize their commodity trading relationships in such markets as Japan, China, Korea and Chile to sell more coal."

Mr Timothy Legge Gunvor SA chairman said this is Gunvor first investment in a coal mine in the United States. The trader can ship large amounts of coal through the deepwater port of Vancouver.

Under the deal, FirstEnergy Generation a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp has revised its original coal purchase agreement with Signal Peak to reduce annual purchases from 6.8 million to 1.8 million tonnes. Most of the coal from the mine will now be purchased by Gunvor.

Signal Peak now mines more than 8 million tonnes of thermal coal per year, but this figure is expected to grow to 13.5 million tonnes by 2015.

(Sourced from Interfax)