Watson, Farley & Williams, a leading international law firm, has advised Universal Coal on its listing on the Australian Stock Exchange and placing to raise A$20.4 million. Universal Coal is a South African focused coal company holding interests in three thermal coal projects of between 25% and 70.5%, which contain over 300 Mt of JORC compliant resources. It is aiming to achieve first coal production from the Kangala project in 2011, ramping up to full production by the first quarter of 2012, subject to various regulatory approvals.

The Kangala project is located in the Witbank coalfield in South Africa, which supplies more than 50% of South Africa’s saleable export and domestic coal. The development of this project is planned to be followed by the development of the Roodekop and Brakfontein projects, subject to positive feasibility studies, financing and other regulatory approvals. Both projects are being planned to maximise their export coal potential. In addition to the thermal coal projects, Universal Coal has an earn-in agreement over two coking coal projects (Berenice and Somerville) that together contain 396 Mt of JORC compliant Inferred resources.

Jan Mellmann, Partner and Head of the International Corporate Group, led the team for Watson, Farley & Williams and was assisted by solicitors Helen Berg, Rebecca Cressy and Rhodri Thomas. Steinepreis Paganin and Webber Wentzel advised on matters of Australian law and South African law respectively. Mellmann comments: “We have assisted Universal Coal with its plans for a number of years now and were delighted to have advised on its successful listing on the Australian Stock Exchange. It is unusual to do an IPO for a UK Plc on the Australian Stock Exchange, and Universal Coal’s assets are in South Africa, but we are very used to handling complex cross-border projects, so it was particularly pleasing to see that the project proceeded smoothly to close earlier this month.”