January Coal Output At Colombia's Cerrejon Unaltered By Rains

Output at Cerrejon LLC, Colombia's largest open-pit coal mine, has return to normal figures in January after heavy rains hampered production in the last months of 2010, a company official said Friday.

Coal production in January averaged around 90,000 tons per day while the company has about one million tons of coal in stock, said Jaime Amaris, Cerrejon's production manager.

Amaris made the comments on the sidelines of a meeting between union officials with the president of Cerrejon and the country's vice president in an effort to reach an agreement and avoid a strike that could paralyze operations in Colombia's largest coal mine.

Leon Teicher, the president of Cerrejon, was attending the meeting along with the leaders of the Sintracarbon union and Angelino Garzon, Colombia's vice president.

Igor Diaz, the president of Sintracarbon, said before the meeting that a strike could be ordered by the union on Saturday if an agreement is not reached.

A strike at Cerrejon, equally owned by mining giants Xstrata PLC (XTA.LN), Anglo American PLC (AAUKY, AAL.LN) and BHP Billiton (BHP, BHP.AU), would hurt Colombia's coal exports. Colombia ranks as one of the world's top coal producers, with output at 76 million tons in 2010. Cerrejon's coal exports in 2010 were 31.4 million tons.

The negotiations between the union and Cerrejon focus on the workers' demands for a salary increase.

-By Darcy Crowe, Dow Jones Newswires; 57-314-298-3277; [e-mail]