PERTH (miningweekly.com) – London-listed GlencoreXstrata has officially placed its $7-billion Wandoan coal project, in Queensland, on hold.
At an investor day briefing in London, the diversified miner revealed that the Wandoan project was one of ten coal projects to be placed on hold in the current market conditions, with seven of these projects falling within Australian borders.
GlencoreXstrata CEO Ivan Glasenberg said the company was aiming to reduce capital spend by some $3.5-billion between 2013 and 2015, and noted that the company’s greenfield projects had been deprioritised with a material reduction in scope and cost.
“Glencore will have a diversified and defensive asset base with an increasingly strong cost curve position,” he added.
The Wandoan project was initially expected to produce some 30-million tonnes of thermal coal a year and was expected to have a mine life of some 30 years.