Coal miners are swimming with the tide for the first time in five years, and surprised investors have been scrambling to get a handle on a sector they've ignored since the heady days of the mining boom.
Valuations for a range of established and unheralded coal plays have surged in recent months, but a few like New Hope Corporation have been left behind.
There's a couple of clear reasons why New Hope – best known for its thermal coal operations on Queensland's Darling Downs – has missed the ride, but it is equally clear that a speedy resolution could send the stock much higher.
New Hope's biggest issue is the permitting process for expansion of its flagship New Acland mine in Queensland, which has been under way for almost a decade. Whitehaven Coal and New Hope Corporation comparative performance The application was first lodged in April 2007, and has since been considered by four Queensland premiers and lived through six different prime ministers.
Acland produced 4.6 million tonnes in fiscal 2016 and the expansion would lift production to 7.5 million tonnes per year and extend its life by 12 years.
Like all new coal projects in Australia, environmental campaigners have made their opposition known, while some local farmers are also worried about the impact the expansion would have on water supplies.
Indeed, some environmental studies suggest water levels in some local aquifers could fall. Court ruling The Queensland Land Court was supposed to give its ruling in June, but is now expected by December.
Approval from the federal environment department is also outstanding, and on September 15 the department pushed the decision back to October 14.
The company hopes the years of torture will be over by Christmas, allowing construction to start early next year.
Thanks to the many delays, New Hope concedes there could be a "time interval" between the exhaustion of stage two of the mine and the start of stage three.
That possible production gap is cooling sentiment towards the stock, and anyone who has followed Adani's efforts to build the Carmichael coal mine knows how easily further delays can occur.
The problem has been somewhat offset by the brilliantly timed acquisition of a 40 per cent stake in the Bengalla mine in the Hunter Valley, which was finalised in March.
New Hope paid Rio Tinto $849 million for the stake, and it has already delivered $97.4 million of revenue in just five months.
Bengalla has diversified the company's production base, but Acland remains New Hope's biggest coal contributor, and the slow approvals process continues to weigh on the stock. Major 'handbrake' "The approvals process is definitely the major handbrake on the stock at the moment, so investors need to form a view on the likelihood of achieving that approval in a timely way and we would expect a re-rating if they get that on time," said Morgans analyst Tom Sartor.
There is extra incentive for New Hope to win the approvals quickly, given the commodity price tailwinds that are blowing.
Thermal coal prices have rallied by close to 50 per cent since January on the back of new rules in China that limit the amount of coal produced by Chinese miners.
That has improved the balance between supply and demand, and filled the sails of rival coal miners like Whitehaven.
Prior to Friday's 9 per cent slump, Whitehaven shares had rallied more than 700 per cent since February.
New Hope shares have less to show from the recent rally; they are 30 per cent higher than in March, but in truth, have been range-bound for most of 2016.
"If investors had certainty on Acland today, then New Hope's profile and share price performance would certainly be a lot stronger, as it has been a popular stock in strong coal markets before," Sartor said.
Optimists believe New Hope is an opportunity to gain exposure to the coal price rally without the risk of buying an overheated stock, and Macquarie analysts said last week they expect the stock to "start to play catch-up" on Whitehaven. Earnings upgrade Macquarie recently upgraded its earnings expectations for New Hope in fiscal 2017 by 108 per cent, and lifted earnings expectations for fiscal 2018 by more than 200 per cent. But when asked about the commodity price rally last week, New Hope chief Shane Stephan said he was more interested in seeing improvements in demand.
He reckons that will happen in late 2017, when the high-efficiency, lower-emission coal-fired power plants under construction in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and the Philippines start ramping up.
Even if that new demand emerges and the Acland approvals are granted swiftly, the illiquid nature of the New Hope share register creates challenges for some investors.
The coal miner is 59.6 per cent owned by investment house Washington H. Soul Pattinson and the second and third largest holders (Perpetual and Mitsubishi) each have 11 per cent of the company.
"The free float of the company is only about 15 per cent of the stock on issue. Three of the biggest shareholders have been unchanged for quite a while, so for retail investors it is a good stock, but larger funds find it difficult," said Mr Sartor.
The miner does have a small oil hedge in the Cooper Basin, but its earnings remain dominated by coal.
New Hope shares last traded at $1.58 and Sartor's target price for the stock is $1.60.
NHC Price at posting:
$1.60 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)
