Nathan Tinkler back on the job at Aberdeen's Dartbrook underground mine

A small listed company, Australian Pacific Coal, surprised the market late last year when it announced it was buying Dartbrook from its multinational owner, Anglo American, for $50million.

Its chief executive and managing director at the time, Nathan Tinkler, stepped down from those roles in February after being declared bankrupt.

But Tinkler family companies are still listed as major investors in Australian Pacific Coal and Mr Tinkler is still involved with the project, as he recently told an online news website, Scone.com.au. In an interview with the website, Mr Tinkler said he was visiting Scone to help re-open the mine, which had operated as a longwall but was now likely to be a bord-and-pillar operation.

Mr Tinkler told the website that the mine could be producing coal by the end of the year with a workforce of 100 to 150 people, if Australian Pacific Coal decided to go ahead with its investment.

In a statement to the stock exchange this week, the company said it had “progressed in securing” the funding to complete its purchase from Anglo, and had enough to buy out the remaining 16.67 per cent owned by Japanese company Marubeni Coal Pty Ltd.

It said a company called Trepang Services Pty Ltd – which is associated with chief executive John Robinson – continued to “show its support” for Australian Pacific Coal and would “actively work” to secure the necessary funding as soon as possible.

“However, due to the nature of this non-binding indication, there is no assurance that such funding will be secured from Trepang (or other parties),” the company said.

In the meantime, the company intended to hold a series of community briefings to set out its proposals for the mine. It said Dartbrook’s “high-quality” thermal coal was likely to be “priced competitively in line with the Newcastle thermal coal benchmark”.

Last month, this was $US55.86 ($71.77) a tonne.