The Illawarra coal miner caught many off guard with its failure to pay wages and salaries for nearly five weeks in September-October, with union officials working overtime to provide assistance to its membership during this difficult period.

In its corporate update yesterday, Gujarat said it had restored and significantly improved operations and production over the past two months.

“The company has recently shipped around 108,000 tonnes of coal on 28 December 2013 and preparing to ship another load of around 85,000 tonnes in next couple of weeks,” Gujarat said.

“All employees are getting paid on time each week and all previous unpaid salaries and wages are paid and settled too.”

While not finalised, Gujarat revealed that the State Bank of India had sanctioned $A52.42 million of new credit facilities.

Gujarat said the bank also sanctioned the restructuring of its existing debt which will allow the $US33.3 million ($A37.3 million) due by December 2014 over three equal instalments to be pushed back to June 2020 over ten structured instalments.

The coal miner said the bank also planned to allow another $10 million through a bank guarantee.

Gujarat also revealed progress towards restructuring the $US25 million loan with the Bank of Baroda and with a $140 million term facility through a banking consortium.

The miner also aims to offer 46 million shares at 8c each to Axis Bank which would raise about $A3.7 million of gross proceeds if it goes ahead.

Almost a month ago Gujarat started calling for voluntary redundancies in line with plans to cut about 90 workers – 20% of its workforce.