Cockatoo Coal hit record coal sales from its Baralaba mine in 4Q15, despite the appointment of administrators in November.

Yancoal saw its production fall 9% in 2015 – but still managed to grow its sales volumes by 1%.

Alvaro Garcia-Tunon is appointed to Board of Directors following Marsha Mishler’s decision to step down, and Gregory Ledford retires from the board.

A consortium of investors, including Taekwang Power and Aowa Power, signed an investment agreement for the Nam Dinh 1 Build-Transfer-Operation thermal power plant in Ha Noi, Vietnam.

Australian rail freight operators, Aurizon, has extended its relationship with long-term customer Syntech Resources.

The Queensland Resources Council has written to Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk seeking a meeting to discuss ways the government can support the state’s resources sector.

Tomas Eliasson has been appointed Executive Vice President and CFO of Sandvik.

According to the latest reports from the US EIA, US coal production finished 2015 off approximately 13% from 2014 totals. Meanwhile spot prices for coal continue their long-term decline and natural gas slipped back slightly from recent highs.

Hollysys Automation Technologies wins contract to provide its proprietary distributed control system for 2 x 1052 MW Ultra-Supercritical coal-fired power generating units.

A round-up of some of this week’s key news items from the international coal industry, from outlooks on the US government implementing a halt on coal leases to an innovative concept to deploy CCS in the Europe.

Australian rail freight operator, Aurizon, reported a fall in coal volumes in 4Q15 on the back of increased competition and falling production volumes.

The US Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy criticises the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan in a new report that analyses the regulation’s subjectivity and fairness.

South32’s coal production fell in the six months to December 2015 on the back of challenging geology at two of its Australian mines.

Bulk materials handling specialists, Flexco and Transmin, have signed a global project partnership agreement, formalising a long history of collaboration.

Capstone Turbine Corp. has announced that it received an additional follow-on order for a large Australian CBM company.

TerraSource Global has announced the addition of a new warehousing facility in Russia.