Whitehaven Coal acquires remaining interest in Vickery South Coal Project 

(MENAFN - ProactiveInvestors - Australia) Whitehaven Coal (ASX: WHC) now wholly owns the Vickery South Coal Project after it acquired the remaining interest in the project from Itochu Corporation.

The Vickery South Project area is adjacent to Whitehaven's Vickery Project, providing an opportunity for Whitehaven to consolidate the two projects.

Whitehaven acquired Itochu's 29% joint venture interest and its right to increase to a 49% interest through farm-in arrangements, which are nearing completion, in exchange for 11.47 million Whitehaven shares.

Shares were last trading at around A2.59, valuing the transaction at 29.7 million.

With the acquisition, Itochu's exclusive offtake and sales agency arrangements relating to the project will be terminated.

The Vickery South Project hosts a 52 million tonne JORC Resource, which when combined with the Vickery Project provides an overall JORC Resource of 537 million tonnes, of which 331.5 million tonnes is in the higher confidence Measured and Indicated categories, for the Vickery Precinct.


Vickery Project

The Vickery Project involves the development of an open cut coal mine producing up to around 4.5 million tonnes per annum of run of mine coal for up to 30 years.

Mining at Vickery will be a recommencement of former operations, with development consent for mining originally granted in October 1986.

The Vickery Project Preliminary Environmental Assessment was lodged with the NSW Department of

Planning in October 2011 and the Environmental Impact Statement was placed on public display on 5 March 2013.

The Vickery South deposit is not included in the current Vickery approvals process.

Whitehaven had cash on hand of 84 million at the end of December 2012.