The demerger of Anglo American’s South African thermal coal assets will be completed on 7 June. The new company, Thungela, will trade on the stock market in Johannesburg and London.
The move is part of the company’s aim of achieving carbon neutrality by 2040, which would be 10 years earlier than other miners such as BHP, Rio Tinto and Vale. CEO Mark Cutifani has said he is confident that Thungela will be “a responsible steward” of Anglo American’s South African thermal coal assets.
There is a real risk that export demand for South African coal will fall much faster than some anticipate and pure-play coal miners like Thungela will find it hard to attract investment.
A sale or spin-off of thermal coal businesses “removes a growing headache for big miners relatively quickly”, says Simon Nicholas, energy finance analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis in Sydney,
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