Feb. 12 1982
Free Press Files
BC Coal Ltd. announced late Tuesday the signing of a 10-year sales agreement with China Steel Corporation of Taiwan to supply a total of 2.8 million tonnes of metallurgical coal from its new Greenhills mine.
Total value of the contract in 1981 dollars amounts to approximately $240-million.
This is the first contract to be signed since a new marketing group - BC Coal International LTD. - was formed in late December. It is also the first long-term sales contract the company has signed with China Steel.
(B.C. Coal is owned by British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation, which holds 67 percent share, and ten Japanese companies which own the balance.)
The agreement runs from April 1982 through March 1992 and call for initial shipments totalling 150,000 tonnes to be supplied during 1982 from the company’s existing Balmer operations in southeastern B.C.
During 1983, a total of 300,000 tonnes will be supplied - one third from BC Coal’s Balmer mine and two thirds from the new Greenhills mine. Thereafter, annual shipments totalling 300,000 tonnes will be supplied exclusively from the Greenhills mine.
Greenhills is scheduled to begin production mid 1983 and when fully operational in 1984 will produce 1.8 million tonnes of metallurgical coal, additional quantities of thermal coal and employ 650 people.
In September 1981, pohang I ron and Steel Company Limited of Korea - a joint venture partner in the project - signed a 20 year sales contract for the annual supply of 500,000 tonnes of Greenhills coal.
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