NORTH AMERICA HEADLINESNorth America
Cliffs Closes Acquisition of INR Energy’s Coal Operations
Aug. 3, 2010 Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. has closed on its previously announced acquisition of INR Energy, LLC’s coal operations located in southern West Virginia.
The operations include two underground metallurgical coal mines, one surface mine, and several development mines. The facilities include a state-of-the-art coal preparation and processing plant and a new 110-car unit-train batch-weight load-out facility with access to the CSX railroad.
Cliffs expects this acquisition to incrementally add approximately 68 million tons of metallurgical coal reserves and 51 million tons of thermal coal reserves to its current reserve base. The transaction also will increase Cliffs’ global coal production capacity to more than 9 million tons in 2011 and 11 million tons in 2012.
Cliffs previously announced that it would finance the $757 million transaction through available liquidity, including cash on hand and the company's $600 million credit facility. Cliffs indicated it will report the future results of this business as part of its North American Coal business segment.
INR Energy, LLC is a producer and exporter of high-volatile metallurgical and thermal coal.
Cliffs Natural Resources, an international mining and natural resources company, is the largest producer of iron ore pellets in North America, a major supplier of direct-shipping lump and fines iron ore out of Australia, and a significant producer of metallurgical coal. The North American business unit comprises six iron ore mines owned or managed in Michigan, Minnesota, and Canada and two coking coal mining complexes located in West Virginia and Alabama. The Asia Pacific business unit comprises two iron ore mining complexes in Western Australia and a 45% economic interest in a coking and thermal coal mine in Queensland, Australia. The Latin American business unit includes a 30% interest in the Amapá Project, an iron ore project in the state of Amapá in Brazil.