This 'Oz' reporter hasn't spoken with management so he's rehashed the announcement, but the emphasis including the headline is positive publicity (and hopefully factual!):

Coal miner New Hope has shrugged off weaker prices to deliver strong quarterly results

"New Hope Corporation has boosted its third quarter earnings substantially despite weaker coal prices and is preparing for major infrastructure works at its New Acland Stage 3 project in Queensland where a key approval was recently granted.

It is also about to restart coal sales into China, as trade relations begin to thaw with our major export partner, and says its cash pile is also generating income for the company.

The coal miner told the Australian Securities Exchange on Monday it had posted underlying EBITDA of $448.1m in its April quarter - up 14.8 per cent on the previous quarter and 20.6 per cent on the same quarter last year.

Sales from its Bengalla coal operations in New South Wales were up 47 per cent on the previous quarter to 2.15 million tonnes (Mt), while the first coal was also recently produced at Malabar Resources’ Maxwell Mine, also in NSW, which New Hope has a 15 per cent interest in.

Production from that project fell outside the time frame of the report released on Monday however.

New Hope said it was cashed up at the end of the quarter, with $827m in cash and cash equivalents after paying its interim and special dividends which returned $348.8m to shareholders, and was “now earning material net interest income on its positive cash balances’"...

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I'm sure a few of nus topped up today, even though the thermal coal futures market is 'bouncy'.