Australia's Whitehaven Coal jumps on price outlook, output beat

By Sneha Kumar

(Reuters) -Australia's Whitehaven Coal said on Friday that it was optimistic about further gains in metallurgical coal prices due to supply constraints and reported quarterly production ahead of market expectations, sending its shares nearly 8% higher.

Australia's biggest independent coal miner, which acquired two metallurgical mines from BHP last year for $4.1 billion, said a shortfall in global coal production with long-term output constraints and higher sea-borne demand from India is expected to lift prices.

"There have been some ongoing question marks about coal demand given the global focus on other sources of energy, but for the time being at least the numbers from Whitehaven today provided some near-term comfort to investors," said Tim Waterer, market analyst at KCM Trade.

Shares of Whitehaven rose as much as 7.8% to A$6.92 by 2332 GMT and were on track for their best session since mid-August, while the benchmark stock index was up about 0.5%.

Total managed run-of-mine (ROM) production was 9.7 million metric tons for the three-month period ended September, beating a Visible Alpha consensus of 9.1 million tons and higher than 5.3 million tons a year ago.

The biggest contributing segment was Queensland coal mines, which Whitehaven bought from BHP and had said it would increase its exposure to markets in India and Southeast Asia.

In its second quarter of output, the Queensland mines reported ROM production of 5.3 million tons, up 11% from the June quarter.

"In Queensland, we are seeing productivity gains and cost improvements," said CEO Paul Flynn.

Meanwhile, ROM production declined 18% at the coal miner's New South Wales operations, and both output and sales are expected to be weighted more heavily towards the second half of the year.

Coal prices realised rose marginally to an average A$238 ($157.89) per ton, compared with A$224 a year earlier.

($1 = 1.5074 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Sneha Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona, Rashmi Aich and Subhranshu Sahu)