The quirky coal producer does not report for the standard December quarter timeframe, with raw coal production reaching 1.42Mt for the three months to the end of January.

The 20% year-on-year gain came from higher production at New Acland, which accounted for 1.15Mt, and from a stronger performance of 200,000t from the Jeebropilly mine.

As owner of Queensland Bulk Handling, New Hope said the QBH expansion at Brisbane’s port was on schedule with electrical installation works on the new stacker complete, conveyors installed and precommissioning works started on new hardware.

Foundation piling for the remaining civil works is complete and two of the six reclaimers are installed.

QBH also hit record throughput last month, loading 769,000t of coal for export.

New Hope’s sales reached 1.33Mt for the quarter, 29% higher year-on-year but slightly down on the previous three-month period.

On the exploration front, the company completed 5030m of drilling, with exploration conducted at its Acland and Jeebropilly mines, along with the Lenton and Ownaview West projects in the state.

New Hope is continuing to review its tenements and is in the final stages of obtaining two further EPCs.

Coal-to-liquids efforts for the quarter included the completion of initial trials of Acland coal through a syncrude reactor.

About 80% of the engineering work is complete at a proof-of-concept plant.

New Hope issued net profit after tax guidance of $A100-110 million for the six months to the end of January, lower than the previous half-year period when the company dished out $648 million in dividends and $769 million in tax.

The dividend payout was triggered by the $2.45 billion sale of the company’s New Saraji project to BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance in July 2008.

Shares in New Hope are up 3c this morning to $4.54.