Ambre Energy has issued the following statement in response to an article in The Australian.

Ambre Energy strongly refutes any suggestion it is at risk of ‘financial collapse’. The company’s financial results for the 2011 financial year were expected and budgeted and entirely indicative of a company which is acquiring and developing a number of large operating assets as part of its long term growth strategy. To date during the 2012 financial year Ambre Energy has raised over $112 million in equity and debt funding and is in a strong financial position. The company is well supported by many long term shareholders, including the resource specialist private equity fund, Resource Capital Funds, and is currently progressing towards a listing on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in the middle of 2012.

The company has submitted detailed permit applications for both its Millennium Bulk Terminals and Morrow Pacific port projects. At Millennium, consolidated permit applications for a 44mtpa coal handling terminal, to be built in two stages, have been lodged with the relevant authorities. Ambre owns 62% of the Millennium project while Arch Coal Inc, the second largest producer of coal in the US, holds 38%. For the Morrow Pacific project, which is 100% owned by Ambre Energy, consolidated permit applications for an 8mtpa barge loading and transshipping operation, to be built in two stages, have been lodged with the relevant authorities.

The company is also a 50% owner and sole mine operator of two producing thermal coal mines in Montana and Wyoming in the US. Production at these two mines (Decker and Black Butte) in the 2011 calendar year was approximately 6 million metric tonnes. The company has attributable JORC resources of thermal coal significantly in excess of 1 billion tonnes across its assets in the US and Australia.”

Read the full Ambre Energy news release here