Rio Tinto said that hard coking coal production was 13 per cent higher than the second quarter of 2011, and thermal coal production was consistent with the second quarter in 2011.

Coal - hard coking
Q2’2012 - 2.001 million tonne up by 17% QoQ
H1’2012 - 3.705 million tonne up by 9% YoY

Coal - semi-soft coking
Q2’2012 - 1.003 million tonne up by 66% QoQ
H1’2012 - 1.609 million tonne up by 17% YoY

Coal - thermal
Q2’2012 - 4.773 million tonne up by 15% QoQ
H1’2012 - 8.912 million tonne up by 2% YoY

Rio said “Hard coking coal production was 13 per cent above the second quarter of 2011. A combination of significant wet weather events and dragline maintenance issues at Hail Creek were offset by increased production at Kestrel, which was impacted by longwall panel changeovers in 2011.”

The release said “Thermal coal production was consistent with the second quarter of 2011 and 15 per cent higher than the first quarter of 2012, primarily due to increased production at Clermont which offset the negative impacts of wet weather events affecting a number of Queensland mines.”

On 25 June 2012, Rio Tinto announced that it had exported its first shipment of premium hard coking coal from its Benga Mine in the Moatize Basin in Mozambique. During the second quarter, Rio Tinto Coal Mozambique produced 123,000 tonnes of thermal coal (80,000 tonnes attributable) and 130,000 tonnes of hard coking coal (85,000 tonnes attributable) at Benga. As the mine is in the commissioning phase, costs net of revenues have been capitalised. Benga is expected to move to commercial production during the third quarter of 2012.

2012 production guidance
In 2012, Rio Tinto’s share of Australian hard coking, semi soft coking and thermal coal production is expected to be 8.5 million tonnes, 3.5 million tonnes and 19.5 million tonnes, respectively.

Source - SRI

(www.coalguru.com)