How’s this for a study in contrasts: One of the world’s biggest coal miners effectively says the industry is dying just days after Australia’s opposition party suffered a shock election loss, partly blamed on its failure to unambiguously back a new coal mine. BHP Group Chief Financial Officer Peter Beavan told a strategy briefing on Wednesday that the world’s biggest mining company has “no appetite” to grow its thermal coal assets and that the polluting fuel will be phased out “potentially sooner than expected”.
To be sure, Beavan was talking about the type of coal used mainly in power generation, and this forms a tiny part of BHP’s total coal portfolio, which is dominated by coking coal used mainly for steelmaking. BHP’s only thermal coal assets are the Mount Arthur thermal coal mine in Australia’s New South Wales state, and a one-third stake in Colombia’s biggest producer, Cerrejon, valued at about $2.5 billion. The company’s joint venture with Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp in Australia’s Queensland state is the world’s largest shipper of coking coal.
