There's never been abetter time to mine coal in Siberia

Miningindustry veteran Owen Hegarty says his Siberian coking coal venture is poisedto capitalise on China's blacklisting of Australian coal, as it embarked on an exquisitely timed $43.5 million fundraising on Wednesday.

ASX-listedTigers Realm Coal has been mining on Russia's Pacific coast for three years andMr Hegarty said the surge in Chinese demand for Canadian and US coal to fillthe gap left by the Australian ban was also extending to Siberia.

''In the same way they have seen a big increasein demand ... we have seen that,'' he said, from hotel quarantine in Melbourneafter jetting in from Hong Kong. ''There has definitely been an increase inactivity."

Logistics billionaire Paul Little and former Sirtex Medical major shareholder Bruce Gray are also significant shareholders in the company, with 5.6 per cent and 39.4 per cent, respectively.

Beijing's trade war has severely distorted coal markets, with Chinese customers paying between 70 per cent and 100 per cent more for non-Australian coal.

"Rightnow in the market you have got a distortion, disruption and bifurcation ofprices,'' said Mr Hegarty, who serves as a non-executive

Mr Hegartyhas previously been a senior executive at Rio Tinto and Oxiana, a director ofFortescue Metals Group and OZ Minerals and is now chairman of acquisitiveprivate equity firm EMR Capital.

The $43.5million raising will help Tigers Realm to lift the volumes of coal it produceseach year, and the proportion of coking coal in the mix.

A majority of the mine's product this year wasthermal coal, but the expansion into a new section of the resource will ensurecoking coal becomes the primary product.

''That wasalways the plan, because the resource up there is more coking coal than thermalcoal,'' said Mr Hegarty.

''We havebeen producing there for the last three years and [are] now in a position wherewe can up the rate a bit in terms of getting the volumes up.''

Mr Gray hasvowed to fully subscribe for his allotment and will also help underwrite theoffer if required, meaning his stake could rise above 50 per cent if othershareholders do not participate.

Mr Hegartysaid Wednesday's raising was not entirely driven by this week's deteriorationin the relationship between Australia and China; Tigers Realm had alwaysintended to expand and install extra infrastructure like a washplant, and thetime was right for a number of reasons.

Tigers Realmhad a hard start to life, with shares this year fetching closer to 1¢ than the 50¢ at which the company was floated on the ASX in 2011.

But withChina refusing to take coking coal from the world's biggest supplier of thecommodity, miners in off-broadway locations like far eastern Russia are havingtheir day in the sun.

Mining inSiberia is very different to Queensland's Bowen Basin coking coal heartland,which sits on the balmy northern side of the Tropic of Capricorn.

The severewinters in Siberia mean Tigers Realm can only ship coal to customers forbetween six and eight months every year.

''We are taking orders right now for next year and as you can imaginethe phone for the marketing manager is running hot as people try to get set fornext year, both in terms of thermal and coking coal,'' he said.

But thetrade war has both given and taken away for Mr Hegarty; EMR Capital is a majorinvestor in Queensland's Kestrel coking coal mine, and it also has a coking coal development project in the United Kingdom.

Mr Hegartyspends much of his time in Hong Kong these days, and said "patience andcalm" would be the secret to resolving Australia's trade tensions withChina.