At most other times in the mining cycle, news of the sale of a goody-two-shoes metallurgical coal asset like Australia’s Grosvenor would have had buyers queuing up to buy.

But disposal of even alluring resources in today’s uncertain and low-price environment needs to be accompanied by an enticing narrative to whet buyer appetite.

Mining major Anglo American obliged last week by drawing attention to the significant plus points of this brand-new longwall operation in Queensland, which is within a hair’s breadth of revenue generation from an operation that resides in a combined resource base of a half-a-billion tonnes and which will feed off a ready-made customer base.

“Its long-term commercial attractiveness is beyond question,” Anglo bulk commodities CEO Seamus French said of the Bowen basin mine that will produce 3.2-million saleable tonnes this year and a full-capacity 7.5-million tonnes a year at an all-in sustaining unit cost of $82/t.

But, despite being on the market since February – when its sale along with Moranbah North and Moranbah South was announced as part of Anglo’s decision to keep only diamond, platinum and copper assets and to exit coal, iron-ore, manganese, nickel, niobium and phosphates – right-priced buyers are still being sought.

“We look forward to shipping the mine’s high-quality product to our steel customers across Asia,” French enticed, after explaining how the virtuous Grosvenor had come in ahead of schedule and below budget, with safety and environmental obligations unblemished.

In February, national environmental group Lock the Gate Alliance called on the Queensland government to ensure that Anglo sold its Grosvenor Moranbah coal mines to companies able to meet rehabilitation responsibilities.

Lock the Gate Alliance spokesperson Rick Humphries urged the Queensland government to vet buyers to ensure that they had the capacity to meet the rehabilitation costs associated with the coal mines.

The installation of Gosvenor’s longwall, which required seven-million person hours for 6 000 people to construct, began only 24 days before its first shear and production of coal – “a truly remarkable feat”.

But an urgent need to pay down debt is forcing its offloading by Anglo, which had hundreds of assets before listing in London in 1999, but which will now keep only 16 of them, all with a consumer orientation.

Nine of the 16 assets retained are in Southern Africa, made up of the Mogalakwena, Amandelbult, Bafokeng Rasimone, Mototolo, Der Brochen, Modikwa and Unki platinum mines – which last year had a combined production of 1.3-million ounces of platinum metal in concentrate – the Venetia diamond mine, where R20-billion is being spent on underground development, and the Voorspoed diamond mine, in the Free State.

Anglo owns 85% of De Beers, which currently produces a third of the world’s rough diamonds by value from mines at Jwaneng and Orapa, in Botswana; Namdeb and Debmarine, in Namibia, and at Victor, in Canada, where the completion of De Beers’ 51%-owned Gahcho Kué project is under way. Anglo’s interests in platinum-group metals (PGMs) are through its 78%-owned subsidiary, Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), which is active in South Africa’s rich Bushveld Complex and in Zimbabwe’s Great Dyke area. Mogalakwena is the highest-margin platinum producer in the industry and operating PGM mines will be supplemented by Amplats’ three smelters at Polokwane, Mortimer and Waterval, as well as its precious metals refinery and base metals refinery, which will continue to process material received from both owned mines and third parties.

Processes are under way for the disposal of Anglo’s 69.7% of Kumba Iron Ore, which has the large Sishen and the new Kolomela iron-ore operations in the Northern Cape.

The open tender process for the sale of its thermal coal mines in South Africa embraces commercial, empowerment, social, labour and electricity-delivery aspects.

Discussion is taking place with the government, State power utility Eskom and the bidders shortlisted to ensure compliance.

Discussion has taken place with South32 to dispose of the 40% manganese interest in Samancor, and the company will also engage with Glencore and BHP Billiton on exiting the Cerrejon coal business, in Colombia.

While the Minas-Rio iron-ore project, in Brazil, has been declared noncore, that will not stop it from being brought to completion in the next three years, when its disposal will be reviewed against the market conditions prevailing in 2018/19.

Copper has been concentrated around two of the world’s largest copper mines at Los Bronces, including the Chagres smelter, and at Collahuasi, both in Chile. Los Bronces, a 50.1%-owned subsidiary, produced 401 700 t of copper last year, when 200 300 t of attributable copper from the 44%-owned Collahuasi went to Anglo. On average, the two assets operate at unit cash costs of $1.45/lb and have lives of 25 years and 70 years.

Last month, Anglo announced that it had entered into a sale agreement on confidential terms with a consortium led by Taurus Fund Management to divest of its 70% interest in the Foxleigh metallurgical coal mine, also in Queensland. Anglo spent $620-million in 2007 to acquire 70% of the Foxleigh opencast mine, in which Korean steel company Posco and Japanese trading and mining investment company Itochu hold the remaining 20% and 10% interests respectively.

In January, Anglo entered into a sales agreement for its Callide thermal coal mine, disposing of the Queensland asset to Batchfire Resources.

It also sold Dartbrook, in New South Wales, to Australian Pacific Coal in December last year in a A$50-million deal.

Because most mining majors do not want to give mines away at fire sale prices, the slowness of buyer response is heightening care-and-maintenance options.

As things stand currently, for-sale notices are plentiful, with not only Anglo, but also majors like Freeport-McMoRan, Vale, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, fighting against shedding mines at unrealistically low prices.

BlackRock, which is reportedly the biggest holder of BHP Billiton’s Australian shares, the biggest shareholder in Newcrest Mining, the second-biggest shareholder in Rio Tinto and a top-four shareholder in Anglo, Glencore and Fortescue Metals, has forecast an acceleration of mine closures.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs has blamed the poor market conditions on the industry’s failure to close mines and the propensity to sell mines to one another rather than closing them.