AMERICAN coal company Peabody Energy is again in financial trouble, putting a question mark over its important Australian operations, including the Hunter's Wambo mine and its complex at Wilpinjong, near Mudgee, which exports out of Newcastle.

ALTHOUGH the timing was unintentional, the launch of a new Hunter organisation wanting a seat at the post-coal decision-making table comes at the same time as another indicator of the industry's declining fortunes; new tonnage figures showing a 5 per cent fall in shipments for the year so far through Newcastle's main coal export terminal.

EIGHT unions and five environmental groups have formed a new "jobs alliance" to counter the "failed 'jobs versus the environment' dynamic" they say is holding back the Hunter Region when it comes to energy policy and the "inevitable" transition to renewables.

Funds set aside for reclamation of coal mines in New South Wales and Queensland are caught up in a $US202 million ($288 million) claim lobbed against struggling miner Peabody Energy.

Australia's fossil fuel exporters have been put on notice of waning appetite for their product from some of their biggest customers in Asia as South Korea's adoption of a net-zero emissions target increased the share of markets committed to decarbonisation to over 70 per cent.

Pandemic should be ‘catalyst for change’, warns Blueprint Institute, which has close ties with former Liberals including Christopher Pyne

The Morrison government is urged to prepare for a shift in the global economy as major trading partners move to cut emissions. A pledge by Japan to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 underscores the risk facing Australia if it fails to prepare for the inevitable shift in the global economy and falling demand for fossil fuels, analysts say.

Demand for Australian thermal coal has peaked, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), and renewables will deliver 80 per cent of the world's energy needs in the next few years.

Australian coal miners could be forced to sell “distressed” cargoes at a discount as China looks to restrict imports of both thermal and coking coal, according to consulting major Wood Mackenzie, as shares in Australian miners tumbled on the prospect of fresh import bans.

Energy Renaissance, Australia's first lithium-ion battery manufacturer, has chosen the NSW Hunter as the location for its new $28 million battery manufacturing facility.

Australia's coal miners are headed for a $17 billion collapse in export earnings this year as the shock of the coronavirus crisis persists and more Asian power utilities switch from coal to gas.

Thermal coal mined by BHP will no longer be burned to make electricity in Australia, after the miner quietly ended the decades long connection between its NSW mine and the nearby power stations of AGL Energy.

One of the nation's largest power suppliers, EnergyAustralia, says subsidising battery installations would be the best way for the federal government to invest in the future of the power market while lifting the economy out of COVID-19.

China's plan to derive 20 per cent of its primary energy from non-fossil fuels may be brought forward by five years from 2030. Coal-fired power has been dying everywhere except where it poses the greatest threat.

Yancoal has slashed its capital spend to ride out a fall in coal prices triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic that helped push it into the red.Read the full article in the AFR 22nd Sept 2020

In the bruised days after Labor’s shock national election defeat last May, union boss Steve Murphy, a Maitland boy, thought long and hard about what went wrong – and came to a very different conclusion than the Hunter Valley’s most prominent ALP figure, Joel Fitzgibbon.

Asian thermal coal exporters are fighting an uphill battle even in new markets. The world’s largest thermal coal exporter is eyeing new markets as its largest export destinations threaten to cut imports.

Atlassian co-founder says it is ‘bullshit’ that giant fossil fuel companies need subsidies to extract gas and export it

If there is a religion in the mining industry, it is the unshakeable faith in the cyclical nature of commodity prices. But recent evidence suggests very few resources companies are willing to make the bold, countercyclical investments that the industry prides itself on.

NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean has declared hydrogen the "breakthrough that changes the world", comparing its impact on climate change to what a vaccine will do to COVID-19.

More battery storage equals less gas. Batteries are usurping the role of gas in the power system. Grid scale battery usage is increasing rapidly, and battery cost deflation is faster than wind or solar.

The New South Wales’ Liberal premier, Gladys Berejiklian, says it will not take much to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and it would be “the stuff of dreams” for an Australian Coalition government to legislate that target.

Whitehaven Coal has had a 95 per cent fall in full-year profit due to lower coal prices but management is adamant there is strong demand for its supplies in Asia.

Resources giant BHP is understood to have hired UBS to work on the $7bn sale or demerger of its coal mines.

Last month, the Japanese government announced a plan to retire its fleet of old, inefficient coal-fired generation by 2030. And what happens to coal power in Japan matters a lot to Australia.

Australia's largest energy generator, AGL, has announced the first concrete steps in shutting down its Liddell coal-fired power station in the NSW Hunter Valley, pre-empting the findings of a government taskforce examining options including extending the plant's operating life.

A NEW economic report has found regional communities are in need of support to diversify their economy so they are less dependent on mining and more resilient to "external shocks".

We’ve seen it time and time again, politicians smiling with workers in Hi Viz every time they want to add a spice of authenticity to their campaign. 

Peabody Energy has announced it will scale back it's underground mining at their Wambo mine complex near Warkworth

Energy giant AGL plans to build a grid-scale battery at Liddell Power Station in Muswellbrook. The company has lodged a scoping report with the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) for a grid-scale battery system to be located on the site, alongside the existing plant.

Another global investor, the UK’s biggest public pension fund NEST, has withdrawn funds from BHP this week because the company is profiting “from digging coal”.

COAL miners at the Bloomfield open-cut mine near Maitland have had their wages supplemented by the COVID-19 subsidy JobKeeper, mine owner Bloomfield Group has confirmed.

Two ASX-listed coal miners have been cut off the books of major superannuation fund Unisuper in another sign of the sector turning its back on the fossil fuels industry.

Glencore is working on plans to slash output from Australian coal mines in response to weak prices, in a move that will reinforce the Swiss miner's reputation as the most active manager of supply and demand in global commodity markets.

Governments must proactively prepare workers and communities as part of a ‘just transition’ in response to an inevitable phase out of coal mines and power stations, leading energy and climate policy experts have warned.

Coal will need to be phased out of the world's economy to meet the climate change challenge, but this can work properly only if social objectives and local stakeholders are involved in the process, an international group of researchers argue in a paper published today.

A striking development has occurred in the world of corporate finance. The past few months have seen a string of corporations divest from thermal coal...

Hunter Valley councils and unions are preparing for a future without coal but say curbs on the Port of Newcastle imposed after the privatisation of ports near Sydney and Wollongong will hold back the transition.

Australia's second-largest superannuation fund is preparing to dump its shares in companies that derive more than 10 per cent of their revenue from thermal coal mining as it embarks on the most aggressive immediate climate push of any large local investor.

The Hunter chapter evocatively captures the strengths, beauty and history our remarkable region and draws on these to paint a picture of the future that is dramatically different from our present, but seems very near and very possible. 

Industry superannuation fund HESTA will divest pure play thermal coal miners immediately, reduce its emissions footprint by 33 per cent over the next decade, and dump all carbon-emitting companies by 2050.

THE state government's new coalmining policy says there is no point in reducing coal exports for environmental reasons, and it opens up eight substantial areas for exploration in the Hunter and adjacent areas, including 178 square kilometres of state forest between historic Wollombi and Broke.

AT first glance, the state government's new "strategic statement on coal exploration and mining in NSW" looks like an attempt to navigate a middle course between the extremes of the energy debate, and to recognise the realities of the Paris Agreement.

The lobby group representing Australia’s largest resources companies will commit to “decarbon­ising” the economy as it stares down pressure from its members to take more action on climate change.