Dartbrook coal mine plunges into administration after defaulting on $174 million loan

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20 hours ago

A troubled NSW coal mine has plunged into receivership and administration just months after it reopened following years of disuse.
Dartbrook Mine, an underground thermal coal joint venture in the Hunter Valley, had sat empty since 2006 until it was revived at the end of last year.
Its owner, ASX-listed Australian Pacific Coal, last month failed to meet its obligations for a $174 million loan to key backer Vitol, a Singapore-based commodities giant.
Australian Pacific Coal has now called in administrators from Deloitte and requested an "immediate" trading suspension on the stock market.
Vitol has since appointed receivers, insolvency firm FTI Consulting, to claw back its millions.
The mine had clocked up losses of $47 million and made less than $1 million in revenue in the last half of last year according to its half year report.
The ABC understands the mine will continue to operate for now.
Australian Pacific Coal declined to comment to the ABC.
In a statement on the ASX, Australian Pacific Coal said its directors met this morning to "assess the financial uncertainty" of the situation.
They said the voluntary suspension on the stock exchange will remain in place until Monday, or until they make another announcement, whichever comes first.
Australian Pacific Coal said last month after it defaulted on its loan that Vitol had "expressed its continued support and commitment towards the Dartbrook project".
They added that Vitol had provided an additional $4.2-million since the loan default in a sign of its continued backing.
Ben Campbell, one of the receivers at FTI Consulting, said Vitol had appointed receivers to support the "long-term future" of the Dartbrook coal mine.
"We intend to continue operations onsite and work with relevant stakeholders while an urgent assessment of options is undertaken," he said.
Tim Buckley, from energy think tank Climate Energy Finance, said he recommended to the NSW government not to give the mine organisation the authority to proceed.
"The company is trying to restart a coal mine on an absolute shoestring of a budget and clearly they are in financial distress," he said.
He said it comes as "no big surprise" that they are in financial difficulty and also noted they had recorded eight injuries in the last six months of 2024.
Three people died at the mine over a 12 year period under its former owner, Anglo Coal.
Controversial coal entrepreneur Nathan Tinkler was formerly the chief executive of Australian Pacific Coal and led their successful purchase of Dartbrook Mine in 2015.
He resigned a year later when he was declared bankrupt.
Dartbrook Mine has about 150,000 tonnes of run-of-mine coal stockpiled.
The joint venture is owned mostly by Australian Pacific Coal Limited but 20 per cent of it is owned by Tetra Dartbrook Pty Ltd.