Massive Black Horse Chromite Discovery

Black Horse deposit has an Inferred Resource Now 85.9 Million Tonnes @ 34.5%

Free
Message: Cliffs Agrees to Sell West Virginia Coal Mines for $175 Million

Cliffs Agrees to Sell West Virginia Coal Mines for $175 Million

By Thomas Biesheuvel Dec 3, 2014 6:44 AM ET

Jan 1Feb 1Mar 1Apr 1May 1Jun 1Jul 1Aug 1Sep 1Oct 1Nov 1Dec 110.0015.0020.0025.00* Price chart for CLIFFS NATURAL RESOURCES INC. Click flags for important stories. CLF:US8.16-0.20 -2.39%

Dec. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Cliffs Natural Resources Inc., the largest U.S. iron ore miner, will sell its coal mines in West Virginia to Coronado Coal II LLC for $175 million.

Cliffs has entered a definitive agreement to sell the Logan County Coal assets it owns in the south of the state, the company said in a statement today. It will use the money to repay debt.

Lourenco Goncalves, chairman and chief executive officer of Cliffs, is seeking to sell the company’s coal operations to focus on producing iron-ore, a key steelmaking ingredient. Goncalves took over at Cliffs in August, the month after activist investor Casablanca Capital LLC won a proxy fight to change the company’s board.

“This transaction is another important step in executing our strategy to transform Cliffs into a stronger, pure-play U.S. iron ore supplier,” Goncalves said in the statement.

Cliffs expects to record a loss on the sale of assets in the range of about $375 million to $425 million on a pre-tax basis in the fourth quarter of 2014, it said in the statement. It continues to explore options for selling coal assets.

Cliffs has been battling falling commodity prices. Its shares tumbled 20 percent last month when it announced it was considering plans to close a Canadian iron-ore mine after prices fell almost 50 percent this year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Biesheuvel in London at [email protected]

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at [email protected] Alex Devine, Ana Monteiro

Share
New Message
Please login to post a reply