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British Columbia-focused Western Canadian Coal (WCC) says its mines can exploit an anticipated doubling in 2009 contract coal prices.

Listed on AIM and Toronto, Vancouver-based WCC, attributes a 41 per cent quarterly reduction in operating losses to enhanced productivity, an 11 per cent increase in output and improved coal prices. President and chief executive officer John Hogg says the company, where entrepreneurial fallen AIM star Cambrian Mining holds a large stake, cut its operating losses from £6.8 million in the second quarter to £4 million in the third quarter to December, with cash costs — before capital expenses — down five per cent to £40.40p a tonne, virtually in line with the average selling price received.

Hogg adds that WCC’s Perry Creek and Brule mines are ‘well positioned to take advantage of the anticipated record coal prices next year’. He suggests these could ‘maybe be as much as 100 per cent higher than current-year coal contracts’.

According to Hogg, spot prices for coking coal have ‘risen markedly in international markets since current contract prices were negotiated’, reflecting transport constraints and floods at the main Australian coalfields. Recent spot coal sales have been agreed ‘at £139 a tonne and more’.

If this state of affairs persists, it should spell happier times for WCC, which turned a £3.8 million profit into a £6.5 million loss in the year to last March. The shares, which soared from 2004’s 76.42p float price to 280p in early 2005 before tumbling to 30p later that year, now trade at 110p, up 17.5p today, valuing the company at £114 million.

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Western Canadian Coal Corporation	AIM	£425.95m	328.50p	-6.50p
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WCC sees coal price boost			15/02/2008
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Western Canadian makes interim £7.8m			08/11/2005
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