d,mate in any potential purchase of a coal mine you do your due...

d,mate in any potential purchase of a coal mine you do your due diligence and indentify any potential shortcomings if it is a contractor then you get the vendor to close them out and bring in your preferred contractors. Yes it is average and there is no premium attached to it. $80 per tonne is way too high should be closer to $40 for coal of that quality at an efficient operation. Yes coal can go down as well as up we've seen it all before, in QLD in the 80s the Japanese bought everything they could and there was a US company UTAH because coal was the hottest commodity to be involved in. UTAH is now gone swallowed up by BHP and the Japanese have retreated. The truth is there are billions of tonnes of coal out there known and most likely the same amount waiting to be found, the easy won stuff is long gone but technology is making whats left more easily won.Mongolia is the hot territory at the moment due to its massive reserves and don't forget China is still sitting on billions of tonnes itself.
The yield on the Dewitt project i read it as 35% for export and 40% for the ESkOM product still very low yields.
d, unfortunately for the likes of KORES they tend get involved in projects after the big guys have looked at them and passed them over. The project i have referred too sits under 600 mts of cover which by our standards is a deep mine and very gassy to boot lots of problems and a vocal and well connected opposition.
As for the price of coal it doesn't overly worry me what does however is quality of management, cost of production and quality of product, the more coking the better as that is really where the money is.
cheers roidz.