The company puts a large part of the production boost down to its successful diversion of the Norfolk Southern Railroad.

The diversion allowed Atlantic to access about 1 million tons of previously unworkable reserves and to achieve improved efficiency.

During the quarter, Atlantic removed 1.1 million bank cubic yards of overburden at its Stockton operation – up from the 715,000bcy in the previous quarter.

It also washed 88,762t of run of mine coal.

The company is confident production will continue to increase incrementally during the remainder of 2012.

It is targeting clean coal production of more than 155,000t for the year to December 31.

Demand for Stockton anthracite remained strong and the company announced an average sales price of $US166.85 a tonne for the quarter.