To be fair, WHC has outperformed NHC for sometime, and only...

To be fair, WHC has outperformed NHC for sometime, and only recently have they diverged.
Whilst both have fallen in the past year, WHC has fallen more.
My guess would be, and purely speculation;
-NHC stable dividend - solid for income investor
-NHC have New Acland ramping up, and costs are lower.
-You also have SOL as large owner of NHC, so they have a big backing there. Almost getting around the ESG investment issue.

WHC on the other hand, increased costs, lower dividend, coking coal price has dropped significantly (~30%).
WHC is almost a proxy for coal mine investors, almost like how PLS was targeted by shorts, despite being a more solid producer than other lithium miners in Australia.

I digress. NHC at least provides dividend investors with income, whereas WHC cut the dividend, and expects future growth (say 2 years from now). I dont think there will be considerable growth, but I could be wrong.

In my opinion, why would you buy WHC expecting growth (because you knew you weren't getting a dividend) when you could buy something like PME or TNE. I got into TNE (even though I thought I was paying a high premium in July, and I'm up 60%+ whilst WHC still lags - thats opportunity cost right there.)