The Australian-British multinational Rio Tinto will sell the Hail Creek coal mine and the Valeria coal development project in Queensland (Australia) to the Anglo–Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company Glencore for a total consideration of US$1.7bn. The transaction includes Rio Tinto's 82% operating stake in the Hail Creek mine and a 71.2% interest in the Valeria coal project.
At the end of 2017, the Hail Creek mine's marketable reserves stood at 142 Mt and its total mineral resources were estimated at 601 Mt. It produced 9.4 Mt of saleable coal in 2017, of which 5.25 Mt of hard coking coal and 4.13 Mt of thermal coal. The Valeria project (Bowen Basin, Emerald, Queensland) is estimated to contain 762 Mt of mineral coal resources and will produce low ash thermal and coking coal products.
The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed in the second half of 2018. It fits into Rio Tinto's global strategy to exit coal and focus on growth in its iron ore, copper and aluminium divisions. This deal comes in the wake of the US$2.7bn Hunter Valley coal operations sale to the Chinese company Yancoal in 2017. The company will also divest its remaining Australian coal assets.
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