Fording’s Gardiner leads North American tour

By fall of this year, Fording Coal expects to have left the broad umbrella of railway giant Canadian Pacific and become a stand-alone, publicly traded company. In preparation for that event, President James Gardiner recently toured major financial centres in North America to introduce the company more fully to the investment community.

Fording has been a member of the CP family for more than three decades and, during that period, has grown from a single mine in southern British Columbia to a major player in the international mining community. Earlier this year, however, CP announced plans to divide itself into five separate companies. The news wasn’t unexpected, as rumours of the restructuring had been circulating in financial markets for some time.

Gardiner described the development as “welcome and exciting” for both employees and shareholders. “Fording has demonstrated an ability to perform and to generate value as a member of the CP group of companies,” he stated. “Now we have the opportunity to do it on our own. We are approaching this process with confidence and from a position of strength.”

Fording is Canada’s largest export-coal producer, and the second-largest supplier of coking coal to the international steel industry. The Calgary-based company operates three export-coal mines in British Columbia that provide high-quality metallurgical coal for steel-making. In Alberta, Fording operates two thermal-coal mines that also supply adjacent power plants, and an oil-sands overburden project near Fort McMurray.

The company has two international subsidiaries: NYCO Minerals in the U.S. and Minera NYCO in Mexico, both of which produce the industrial minerals wollastonite and tripoli. Wollastonite is a non-metallic mineral used in making ceramics, plastics, coatings and construction materials. Tripoli is a soft abrasive mineral used in soaps and cleansers, and buffing and polishing compounds.

Fording says its economic reserves of high-quality coal and wollastonite are “massive” and will provide opportunities for growth in the years ahead. The company boasts the lowest extraction costs in the Canadian coal industry, and is now witnessing the return of price strength to coal markets.

On the power front, the company sees significant growth potential in production and electricity generation opportunities in western Canada, as well as opportunities to move further into high-value product segments of the wollastonite industry.

Fording Coal expects to begin trading on both the Toronto Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange, under the ticker symbol FDG, in late August of this year. The company expects to generate revenue of $1 billion for 2001.