Australia's New Hope Corp Ltd has announced the acquisition of a 15 percent stake in Malabar Resources Ltd for A$94.4 million ($65.25 million), which is aligned with the company's strategy to invest its surplus cash into coal assets. With the investment in question, New Hope Corp expects to diversify its asset base by providing exposure to metallurgical coal and concurrently to “add meaningful equity tonnes at an attractive entry price, investing alongside well-respected founders who have a strong track record of developing coal projects and companies.”
Malabar Resources is an unlisted public company, the flagship asset of which is the Maxwell mine, an underground metallurgical coal project located 10 km southwest of Muswellbrook in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales. The project was commenced in May this year and is approved to extract a maximum of 8 million mt of run-of-mine (ROM) coal per year over a period of 26 years, according to the official statement.