Bathurst Resources Ltd (ASX: BTU) will place 50 million ordinary shares with sophisticated investors at a price of 5 cents per share to raise up to $2.5 million. A Share Purchase Plan will offered to shareholders.

QUEENSLAND coal producer Macarthur Coal may finally have swayed market opinion with a dramatic earnings upgrade on the back of unprecedented commodity demand.

AUSTRALIA'S coal producers are missing out on bonanza prices of more than $US100 a tonne on the spot market because of a series of freak events that have hamstrung production and export.

BHP Billiton and its Japanese partner Mitsubishi are to build a $234 million state-of-the-art coal preparation plant at the group's Blackwater mine.

AUSTRALIA'S major coking coal exporter, BHP Billiton, is expected to announce average coking coal price increases of 20-25 per cent for its 2004 contracts, more than twice the price rise anticipated by the market.

Former MIM chief Vince Gauci's claim that the company was sold too cheaply to Swiss-based Xstrata was vindicated yesterday when Xstrata sold part of the company's coal assets for $130 million more than it paid for them just three months ago.

CMS Energy Corp. said Thursday that it and other partners in an Australian power plant have reached a tentative $2.4 billion agreement to sell the plant and an adjacent coal mine.

SHARES in the Queensland Gas Company (QGC) rocketed 20 per cent yesterday after it revealed it was in negotiations to advance production of coal seam methane from its Surat basin gasfield.

The Hunter Valley is facing a tough year after one of the region's biggest coal producers, Rio Tinto, became the latest victim of a surging Australian dollar and a glut of Asian exports.

Leighton Holdings Ltd has been awarded the $240 million Moorvale coal mining contract in central Queensland for three years, with the option of a fourth year.