Peabody to Close Wilkie Creek Thermal Coal Mine

Bloomberg reported that as a result of declining coal prices, Peabody Energy Corp. (NYSE:BTU) plans to cease production at its Queensland-based Wilkie Creek thermal coal mine by the end of the year.

As quoted in the market news:

In the fourth quarter, Peabody will record as much as $65 million in pretax expenses from the closing and take a pretax writedown of as much as $65 million, it said in a filing yesterday.

In January 2012, Peabody said it put the mine up for sale and that the operation had a production capacity of about 2.5 million metric tons a year. It purchased Wilkie Creek from Mirant Corp. in 2002 to boost sales of the electricity- generating fuel to Asia.

Click here to read the full Bloomberg report.