Anglo American CEO Duncan Wanblad said on Thursday that there was “no meaningful damage” to the group’s Moranbah North site following an underground fire that hit the coal mine in March.
Wanblad’s statement, part of Anglo’s second quarter trading update, comes as the group is locked in a tug-of-war with US-based Peabody Energy over the mooted sale of its steelmaking coal operations, for $3.8bn.
Moranbah is the largest of the four Australian steelmaking coal mines, which Anglo announced in November would be sold to Peabody as part of the group’s portfolio restructuring.
The fire, which has put operations at Moranbah on hold temporarily, has thrown a spanner in the works of Anglo’s restructuring plans, which focus the group’s portfolio solely on copper, premium iron ore and crop nutrients.
In the recent trading update, Anglo flagged considerable progress towards a safe restart at Moranbah North, with a full restart of the operation expected “in due course”.
“On this basis, we continue to believe that this event does not constitute a material adverse change [MAC] under our agreements with Peabody,” said Wanblad.
Peabody is expected to give further details on the MAC it issued Anglo in May, which essentially put the Anglo-SA mining major on notice that it may terminate the agreement, should issues it has identified at Moranbah North not be addressed.
Peabody has put funding for the deal on hold until the parties come to an agreement on Moranbah.
Anglo’s trading update ahead of its interim results next week shows the pause at Moranbah took its toll on its operational performance in the three months to end-June, particularly with operations at the group's Grosvenor coal mine having been suspended for over a year following a similar underground explosion in June 2024.
Anglo reported steelmaking coal production at 2.1-million tonnes, down by more than half on an annualised basis, reflecting the impact of both shutdowns and the sale of its Jellinbah coal mine in January.
While copper production improved on a quarterly basis, it was still 11% lower than the second quarter of last year, weighed down by a planned reduction in Chile — particularly at Collahuasi, where Anglo's attributable share of output slumped by 20%.
The company affirmed that “Collahuasi was expecting lower production in 2025 as the mine transitions between different phases, with some improvements expected through the year, resulting in production weighted to the second half.”
In the iron ore division, Kumba's output was largely flat, while Minas-Rio in Brazil recorded a 4% uptick in production. Overall, iron ore production was up 3% year on year.
“We continue to progress with our portfolio simplification as we reshape our business for the longer term — and our reorganisation and cost reduction programmes are on track,” said Wanblad.
“Looking beyond this transitionary year, we will emerge as a highly differentiated, higher margin and more cash generative business setting us up to deliver the outstanding potential of our world class assets and resource endowments.”
With Kabelo Khumalo
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