TIMING is not the only thing that links Peabody - planning job cuts at Wambo underground - with BHP wanting a divorce from its Mount Arthur open-cut in particular, and thermal coal in general.
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Troubles had been brewing at both sites for some time.
READ MORE: Movement at Mount Arthur and Wambo
Peabody had already stood down - or "furloughed" - a number of Wambo miners, before turning that announcement into this week's more permanent goodbye.
And the US parent company had a close brush with death in 2016, when it sought insolvency refuge under America's "Chapter 11" bankruptcy laws.
Eleven months later, a new company emerged, having sliced about $US5 billion off an almost $US9 billion debt burden.
Its Australian assets - Wambo, the big Wilpinjong mine near Mudgee, and a stable of Queensland coking coal mines - remained intact.
But then came COVID, and like other companies with less than stellar balance sheets, Peabody has found the going tough, especially as coal prices began to crater as demand dropped off.
As a "pure play" coal company, it faces a barrage of criticism - justified or not - for simply going about its business.
For BHP, its size and diversity make getting out of thermal coal relatively easy.
Mount Arthur might being losing money while coal prices are where they are, but the greater risk would appear to be the reputational damage a messy exit could inflict on the company's carefully curated image.
Short-term, there's the chance that divestment will be read as "virtue signalling" - another kow-tow to the environmentally aggressive wing of global banking.
Indeed, if BHP does not ensure that hundreds of millions of dollars, at least, are committed to end-of-life rehabilitation of Mount Arthur, critics would have ample grounds to accuse The Big Australian of being derelict in its environmental duties.
And that's before the washup of the "coal casuals" question is considered, with BHP facing a class action and parliamentary scrutiny over its enthusiastic use of cut-price contract labour at Mount Arthur.
But BHP is not getting out of coal.
Indeed, in "sharpening (its) focus" on hard coking coal, it is concentrating on the highest priced, and most potentially profitable, end of the market.
As it told employees yesterday, there is still a long way to go in this story.
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