The ultimate goal of an annual target of 1.5Mt remained providing suitable contracting capacity and sustainable contracting pricing is applied, the company said.

Altura has continued negotiations with various contractors in an effort to increase tonnage and reduce mining costs.

“The mine continues to focus on cost reductions and efficiency gains in order to offset historically low coal prices and provide a positive platform to maximise the extraction of the mine’s considerable coal resources,” it said in its latest quarterly report.

The company has decided to defer its decision to spin out its coal division because of the challenging commodity market and poor investor interest in the coal sector.

“The shareholder group has a number of options that it is pursuing, which include but are not limited to, the possible sale of the coal assets, asset integration with other operations and potential equity investment in the assets, which comprise the Delta Coal mine and the Tabalong coal project,” Altura said.