Central Europe's New World Resources produced 6.45 million mt of coal in the first nine months of 2013, a 25% year-on-year decline, the miner reported in its results for the nine months to end-September.
External coal sales for January-September totaled 7.18 million mt, also slipping 6% on-year. The sales volume comprised 3.42 million mt of coking coal, down 19% on-year, at an average realized sales price of Eur98/mt ($132.46/mt), 25% lower than the 2012 period's Eur133/mt ($179.78/mt).
Of the coking coal sales, 389,000 mt was sold to the company's discontinued coke unit, OKK, which NWR agreed at the end of September to sell to the Metalimex group for Eur95 million. The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
Thermal coal sales for January-September totaled 3.76 million mt, rising 12% from the same nine-month period in 2012. The average realized sales price was Eur56/mt ($75.70/mt), also a 22% drop on-year from Eur73/mt ($98.68/mt) in the first three quarters of 2012.
The miner said that at the end of September, it held 564,000 mt of coal available for immediate sale, down 57% from stocks of 1.31 million mt at the end of the same period in 2012.
NWR said it expects to produce 9 million mt for the full 12 months, with sales for the year targeted at 9.5 million mt, split evenly between coking and thermal coal.
The miner targets production of 8 million-9 million mt for the whole of 2014. NWR executive chairman Gareth Penny said in the results that the company aims to become "Europe's leading miner and marketer of coking coal by 2017," starting by increasing its coking coal sales in 2014 to 60% of total sales.
He added that the miner is targeting increasing European coking coal sales to 10 million mt by 2017, as well as embarking on a new marketing initiative which includes importing seaborne coking coal.
