In a recent presentation Rio revealed it had achieved about $US800 million ($A1.04 billion) in coal division cost savings from 2012 to the end of 2014.

The mining giant said the cost and productivity improvements systems from the coal division would be “replicated at its copper operations”.

Rio also charted that its Australian thermal coal cost position had fallen to 69% of where it was in 2012 while its coking coal cost position fell even more to 65%.

Labour productivity, as measured by thousands of tonnes of material moved per each full time employee, was also charted to reveal a 30% improvement to 219,000t from 2012 to 2015.

Rio said the ramp up of the Kestrel longwall mine was progressively well and had significantly lowered unit costs.

Meanwhile, a recent presentation from Peabody revealed that this mining giant had made “aggressive Australian cost reduction efforts”.

In this regard Peabody said it had completed operating conversions with more than 95% of its Australian production now falling under the owner-operator model.

Peabody also said it was evaluating options at its Burton mine in Queensland’s Bowen Basin with mining operator contract there expiring in mid-2016.

The coal producer noted that the Australian cost per tonne across its metallurgical and thermal coal operations had fallen from $78/t in 2012 to a projected $62-64/t in 2015.

Spot coal prices remain considerably down on the last quarterly contract outcomes with Solid Energy announcing job cuts from its Stockton coking coal mine in New Zealand three weeks ago after spot hard coking coal prices fell to $83/t.

Spot thermal coal prices are also faring badly with high quality low ash thermal coal around the low $50s per tonne while the higher ash spot thermal coal is around the lower end of the $40s.