TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Cash-strapped Walter Energy suspended its quarterly dividend on its common stock on Wednesday to enhance its financial flexibility in the current turbulent metallurgical coal market conditions.
The pure-play metallurgical coal producer had previously paid a quarterly dividend of $0.01 a share.
Coal miners across the globe were finding little respite in the current low oil prices, as stubbornly low coal prices, a global supply glut and competition from natural gas had forced cash-poor miners to idle unprofitable mines and retrench thousands of miners. In the US, increasingly strict environmental legislation was also putting a stranglehold on the coal industry’s growth prospects.
Last year Walter idled its Canadian operations in the second quarter.
The company expected full-year 2014 met coal production of about 9.5-million tons.
Thirteen Wall Street analysts on average expected the miner to report an adjusted loss of $1.59 a share for the three months ended December 31.