On Thursday, Centennial Coal secured the controlling stake in Austral Coal and was now moving to take over Austral’s Tahmoor mine. Both companies’ boards planned to meet early this week.

Centennial chief financial officer told the Australian Financial Review operating costs at the Tahmoor mine were significantly higher than Centennial’s other longwall mines - Springvale, Newstan, Angus Place and Mandalong.

Centennial took the majority stake in Austral despite a scare on Monday when Swiss trading house Glencore announced it had taken a 12% stake in the company and was considering a cash bid.

A Glencore spokesman said Glencore was happy to sit on the Austral share registry as a substantial stakeholder.