Don Lindsay, President and CEO said, "During the quarter we eliminated the outstanding balance of our term bank loan and have now repaid the US$9.8 billion bank debt related to the Fording acquisition in less than 18 months, just over two years ahead of schedule. In addition, all of our operations performed well, and we met or exceeded the guidance given in our previous quarterly report. Our second quarter benefitted from a substantial increase in coal sales to 6.4 million tonnes and the higher benchmark prices negotiated for the second quarter. In addition, in the quarter we re-established our investment grade credit ratings from all of the major rating agencies and declared a semi-annual dividend of $0.20 per share.”

Highlights and Significant Items

• In April, we repaid the remaining portion of the bank debt incurred in connection with the Fording acquisition.
• EBITDA was $844 million in the second quarter on revenues of $2.1 billion.
• Second quarter coal sales volumes of 6.4 million tonnes increased by 29% compared with the second quarter of 2009. We have agreed on prices with the majority of our contract customers for the third quarter of 2010 at or above US$225 per tonne for our highest quality products. We expect our weighted average selling prices for the third quarter to be in the range of US$195 to US$200 per tonne.
• The explosion that occurred in the dryer at the Greenhills mine processing plant on June 28, 2010 is not currently expected to have a significant impact on third quarter or 2010 results.
• The ramp up to full production continues at Carmen de Andacollo and we expect to reach design capacity in the fourth quarter of 2010.
• Red Dog commenced mining of the Aqqaluk deposit on May 20, 2010.
• Our senior debt now has investment grade credit ratings from each of the major rating agencies.
• In April, we declared a dividend on our Class A common and Class B subordinate voting shares of $0.20 per share, which was paid on July 2, 2010.

Download/view Q2 2010 Report for the full text of this release (206KB PDF)

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