In short: Anglo American announced on Monday 18 May that it has agreed to sell its portfolio of Australian steelmaking coal mines to Dhilmar Limited, a privately held UK-registered company, for cash consideration of up to US$3.875 billion. The transaction comprises a US$2.3 billion upfront payment with a further US$1.575 billion in price-linked earnout over five years. Completion is expected in the first quarter of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals.
Anglo American has finally found a buyer for the Australian steelmaking coal portfolio that has been the stubbornly difficult final piece of its multi-year restructuring. The London-listed miner announced on Monday morning that Dhilmar Limited — a privately held UK-registered company led by Indonesian mining executive Alexander Ramlie — has agreed to acquire the assets for cash consideration of up to US$3.875 billion.
The deal structure consists of an upfront cash payment of US$2.3 billion at completion, plus a price-linked earnout of up to US$1.575 billion. The earnout will be paid quarterly over five years, calculated as 50% of incremental revenue post royalties from equity coal production above agreed metallurgical and thermal coal benchmark prices. The trigger price broadly aligns to a Premium Low-Volatility Hard Coking Coal benchmark of US$259 per tonne, inflated annually by US CPI from completion.
The final step toward Teck
Anglo American chief executive Duncan Wanblad framed the agreement as the culmination of a strategic reset announced two years ago. “Our agreement for Dhilmar to acquire our steelmaking coal business in Australia is testament to the high quality of these assets and our people,” Wanblad said in the statement accompanying the announcement.
“This agreement represents another major step in the simplification of our portfolio ahead of completing our merger with Teck,” Wanblad added. “Through this transaction, we will complete our exit from steelmaking coal, delivering aggregate cash proceeds of up to US$4.9 billion, given the prior completion of the sale of our interest in the Jellinbah mine for approximately US$1 billion.”
The reference to Teck Resources is central to understanding the transaction. Anglo American announced in September 2025 that it had agreed a merger of equals with the Vancouver-based copper specialist, creating a critical-minerals giant with a market capitalisation in excess of US$53 billion. That merger requires Anglo American to present a clean, copper-focused portfolio to the combined entity’s investors — a vision incompatible with continued ownership of metallurgical coal mines in Queensland’s Bowen Basin.
A second attempt after Peabody collapsed
The Dhilmar transaction is Anglo American’s second attempt to dispose of these assets. In November 2024, the company struck an agreement with Peabody Energy — the St Louis-based US coal producer — under broadly similar commercial terms. That deal collapsed in August 2025 when Peabody withdrew, citing a fire and prolonged shutdown at the Moranbah North mine, the largest asset in the portfolio.
Anglo American has consistently disputed Peabody’s grounds for termination and has commenced arbitration proceedings. The company confirmed on Monday that those proceedings will continue alongside the new transaction. “Anglo American remains confident that the incident at Moranbah North relied upon by Peabody in support of its purported termination of its agreement did not constitute a Material Adverse Change,” the statement said.
The assets and the buyer
The portfolio being transferred consists primarily of an 88% interest in the Moranbah North and Grosvenor joint ventures; a 70% interest in the Capcoal joint venture; an 86.36% interest in the Roper Creek joint venture; a 51% interest in the Dawson, Dawson South, Dawson South Exploration and Theodore South joint ventures; and a 50% interest in the Moranbah South joint venture. These are concentrated in Queensland’s Bowen Basin, among the world’s premier hard coking coal provinces, supplying integrated steelmakers in Japan, South Korea, India and Europe.
Dhilmar itself is a relatively new face in major mining transactions. The company’s main existing asset is the Éléonore gold mine in Quebec, acquired from Newmont Corporation in 2025 for approximately US$795 million. Its chief executive Alexander Ramlie also sits on the board of commissioners of PT Amman Mineral Internasional, which operates the Batu Hijau copper-gold mine in West Sumbawa, Indonesia.
Markets reacted with mild caution. Anglo American (LON: AAL) shares fell 2.6% on Monday morning, with traders citing the price-linked earnout structure as introducing a degree of post-completion volatility into the company’s medium-term cash flow profile. The FTSE 100 itself was trading flat to slightly lower at around 10,149 points, weighed down by political risk in Westminster and continued tension around the Strait of Hormuz.
For Anglo American, however, the strategic logic is clear. With aggregate proceeds of up to US$4.9 billion from its coal exit, a stronger balance sheet ahead of the Teck integration, and a portfolio newly focused on copper, premium iron ore and crop nutrients, the company has positioned itself for the energy-transition decade with a coherence that eluded most of its peers when the cycle turned in 2022.
