Despite the confidentiality provisions around the sale, yesterday a Kores spokesman confirmed to Reuters that the Korean consortium was selected to complete due diligence and enter the binding proposal phase.

Both Daewoo and Kores collectively own 7.5% of Whitehaven’s flagship Narrabri North underground coal mine in New South Wales.

Plans are in place to install new Bucyrus longwall equipment at the Gunnedah Basin mine in the September quarter.

Narrabri North could produce 6 million tonnes per annum of raw coal through conventional longwall mining of a 4.2-metre bottom section of the 8-9m thick Hoskissons seam.

The Bucyrus longwall equipment, however, can be retrofitted to perform longwall top coal caving.

If LTCC is proven to be feasible and is implemented, extracting the full seam could increase raw coal production to 12Mtpa after the first two panels are mined.

Coal giant Banpu – which acquired Centennial Coal last year, Peabody Energy and Alpha Natural Resources – is not suspected to be in the running according to various reports.

There could well be other interest from Chinese and Indian companies which have also become more active in the Australian coal space over the past 18 months.

The deadline for binding bids is in early April, according to the Herald Sun.

But Whitehaven’s board has not announced a definitive timeline for its sale, which was officially launched in late October.

“The formal process is expected to continue for a number of months and may or may not result in a final proposal being made and recommended by the board,” the company said last week.

Whitehaven shares were down 2c to $7.22 this morning.