GLOUCESTER Coal has merged with the Chinese-owned Yancoal Australia.
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Today the miner will stop trading as Gloucester Coal on the Australian share market.
It will be replaced by Yancoal Australia from tomorrow.
Yancoal’s parent company Yanzhou Coal - China’s fourth-largest coal miner - will control 78 per cent of the new entity.
Talks between Gloucester Coal and Yanzhou began back in December last year.
The Supreme Court of Victoria approved the proposed merger between Gloucester Coal and Yancoal Australia last Wednesday.
The new entity will own 11 thermal and coking coal mines, both underground and open cut, mostly in NSW and Queensland and all but one of which is already operating.
The merger coincides with plans to extend both the Duralie and Stratford mines.
Gloucester Basin mines general manager Mike Smith said it was hoped approval for new mining projects at the two sites would occur in the next 18 months.
Gloucester Coal began mining at Stratford in 1995 and Duralie in 2003.
The merger is expected to be wholly finalised by July 6.
Mr Smith said he believed operations at the Gloucester Basin mines would remain unchanged for the forseeable future. Gloucester Coal began handing out $95.4 million in special dividends to shareholders yesterday after increasing the special dividend to 47 cents per share, up from 44 cents.
The payout is the first step in a $639 million, $3.15 per share capital return, with the rest to be paid in January. The merger is the largest investment by a Chinese state-owned company in Australia’s coal industry.