JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Troubled coal miner Buffalo Coal produced 473 000 t in the first quarter of the year, a 53.1% increase from the 309 000 t produced in the last quarter of 2014.

Run-of-mine production from its Magdalena underground and opencast operations, near Dundee, in KwaZulu-Natal, produced 354 000 t, 71% up from 207 000 t produced in 2014.

The Aviemore mine, in the same region, delivered 119 000 t, up 16.7% quarter-on-quarter.

The dual-listed company said on Friday that its quarter-on-quarter revenue from coal increased 0.9% from R163.3-million to R164.7-million, paired with a 9.8% upsurge in sales.

Bituminous sales for the first quarter were R38.2-million for domestic and R69.9-million for export, down from R38.9-million and R79.3-million in the previous quarter, while anthracite sales brought in R21.8-million for domestic and R20.1-million for export. In the last quarter of 2014, these figures were R17.4-million and R45-million, respectively.

GOING FORWARD
“Our long-term vision is to build a high-quality bituminous and metallurgical coal mining and supply company. Future production growth is set to be twofold; firstly, through expansion and optimisation of the existing BC Dundee operations and, secondly, through acquisition in the Southern African region,” the company said in statement.

In the current economic climate, compounded by events in the past year, including the flooding incident at Magdalena underground, the tragic fatality at Aviemore and the necessity of having to initiate a restructuring process, the short-term strategy of the group would be an internal focus on a turnaround back to profitability to ensure the creation of a sustainable foundation to take forward.

“We will continue to pursue attractive expansion opportunities where it is believed that such opportunities will be synergistic and value-enhancing to the existing business, while not removing the focus on the existing Dundee operations.

“In particular, the Magdalena opencast reserve has reached the end of its life-of-mine during this quarter and we continue to seek replacement tonnages in the area,” advised Buffalo Coal.