ASIAN investors remain keen on Australian coal assets, with Japan's Mitsui Matsushima and India's Jindal Steel and Power striking equity deals with listed juniors NuCoal Resources and Gujarat NRE Coal. Subject to due diligence, Mitsui will spend up to $40 million to earn a 10 per cent stake in listed NuCoal's controversial semi-soft coking and thermal coal project at Doyles Creek in the Hunter Valley, and once a feasibility study is completed will have the option to acquire another 10 per cent. It will also have exclusive marketing rights for NuCoal product in Japan. NuCoal has been caught up in an investigation by the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption into the 2008 allocation of an exploration licence to unlisted Doyles Creek Mining, then chaired by union boss John Maitland, who was also a minority investor. The licence was awarded without tender and contrary to departmental advice by then mining minister Ian Macdonald and was later sold to NuCoal, which floated in February 2010. Investec analyst Colin McLelland said some investors worried that the ICAC inquiry had the potential to derail the Doyles Creek project in the worst-case scenario and ''it's nice to have another a major player there and to put further distance between the original granting of the lease''. The deal with Mitsui was a ''great endorsement'', he said, valuing the Doyles Creek project at $400 million, which was 5 per cent higher than his valuation.
