Yancoal Australia to prepay $459 mln debt as record coal prices boost cashflows

Coal miner Yancoal Australia Ltd YAL said on Friday it intended to prepay $459 million of its debt on or around Dec. 16, as elevated coal prices were supporting strong cash inflows.

Global coal prices have been touching near record highs, following fears of a supply crunch due to Western sanctions on Russia, the world's third-largest exporter of coal, due to the Ukraine crisis.

The planned prepayment is part of the miner's repayment towards its syndicated facility and its related-party loans, Yancoal said in a statement, leaving the miner with a $333 million syndicated term loan as its only remaining payable debt.

Of this, $301 million is due in the second half of 2024 and $32 million is due in the second half of 2026.

"Yancoal's scale of production provides substantial cash inflows during periods of elevated coal prices, and the decision to undertake yet another debt prepayment was made possible by the recent coal price," Yancoal Chief Executive Officer David Moult said.

Combined with debt prepayments in October 2021, July 2022 and October 2022, the planned $459 million debt prepayment will result in the miner having prepaid over $2.75 billion of debt in the last 15 months, the company said.