Australian coal M&A update November 2018: Stanmore, New Hope and Yancoal in focus

A flurry of coal transactions have been announced in Australia over the past week, cementing the country as this year's coal M&A hot-spot. In our Global coal M&A wrap up in August, we reported that global coal spend (excluding China and India) had reached US$5.6 billion, with Australia's share at 94%. Since then a handful of additional deals have pushed this year's tally to over US$6 billion. Most recently, we've seen three distinct transactions spanning both thermal and metallurgical coal assets in New South Wales and Queensland. The surprise announcement came from Indonesia's Golden Energy which has made a bid to acquire Australia's Stanmore Coal for US$172 million.