As part of the decision to manage its energy coal business alongside its iron ore, manganese and metallurgical coal businesses, BHP Billiton is bringing together energy coal and metallurgical coal under a single customer sector group president.

The current President of Metallurgical Coal, Dave Murray, will become the President of Coal, with responsibility for both the metallurgical coal and energy coal businesses. He will continue to report to Chris Lynch, Group President of Carbon Steel Materials. Lynch said the integration of the energy coal assets into the broader carbon steel materials group had been successfully completed. He said the combination would further strengthen BHP Billiton’s commitment to improving and enhancing the operations of the group’s coal assets in Australia, South Africa, Colombia, the US and Indonesia. There will be no change to the group’s marketing structure.

“This combination will allow us to maximize the operating synergies between our coal businesses and facilitate the transfer of skills and systems between countries and operations. It confirms our commitment to further improve the coal business in each of the countries where we operate,” Lynch said.