Anglo American has reported a 54 per cent drop in steelmaking coal production across its Queensland operations as it prepares to restart the formal sale process for the business.

The decrease last quarter compared to the same time last year was primarily attributed to Moranbah North being offline and the company’s sale of its minority interest in Jellinbah, which completed in January 2025.

The company’s September quarter production report also cited mine sequencing at the Dawson and Capcoal open-cut operations as dragging down the figures.

This was partially offset by higher production at the Aquila underground mine, reflecting strong
performance from the longwall, which successfully undertook a walk-on/walk-off longwall move during the quarter with minimal impact to production, the company said.

Peabody Energy has backed away from a 2024 agreement to acquire Anglo American’s steelmaking coal business for more than $5 billion.

Peabody cited a material adverse change (MAC) as defined under the purchase agreements, saying in August that there was still no definitive timeline to resuming sustainable longwall production at Moranbah North following an ignition event in March.

Anglo said it was confident in its legal position that the incident did not constitute an MAC and had initiated an arbitration process to seek damages for wrongful termination.

Anglo American chief executive officer Duncan Wanblad said, in the September quarter report, that the company was continuing to make progress towards a safe and structured restart and ramp up at Moranbah North ahead of resuming normal operations.

“At Grosvenor, we received approval from the regulator in August for first stage re-entry, marking a significant milestone in the recovery journey,” he said.

“Preparations are under way to restart the formal sale process of the steelmaking coal business in the coming months.”

Anglo produced 1.884 million tonnes of metallurgical coal in the September quarter 2025, compared to 4.102 million tonnes at the same time in 2024.

The ratio of hard coking coal production to PCI/semi-soft coking coal was 81:19 during the quarter, higher than Q3 2024 (74:26), reflecting the change in product mix following the sale of Jellinbah.

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