Sales of 529,000 tonnes were 3% above the 2009 March quarter with a much higher proportion of coking coal sales.

Coking coal sales were 103% higher than the previous corresponding period while thermal sales were down 22%.

Gloucester locked in April to June quarterly pricing for its coking coal with Japanese steel mills at a 100% increase to last year.

“The strategic shift of the company’s production is on-rack to produce two million tonnes of coking coal per annum for 2014-15,” Gloucester chief executive Barry Tudor said.

“Towards that objective we have steadily improved the performance of our coal handling to record levels, coking coal sales have increased and thermal coal output allows us to optimise the capacity of our export chain.”

The upgrade of the company’s Stratford coal preparation plant has continued, with the project on schedule to increase throughput to 4.3 million tonnes by late this year.

Gloucester continued its accelerated exploration program, spending $3.4 million on exploration in the quarter with 14 drill rigs at work. A further three rigs will start operating in the next few weeks.

Last month, Gloucester announced a 28% increase to JORC reserves to 57.2Mt and a 10% resource increase to 239.9Mt.

Gloucester also remains subject to a takeover bid launched by Macarthur Coal in December.

Noble, which holds 87.7% of Gloucester, rejected the takeover bid and Middlemount transaction in April. Macarthur’s offer requires 90% acceptance.

Macarthur stated this month it was unlikely the offer would proceed in its current form.

In April, Noble announced its intention, subject to the Macarthur bid not going ahead, to make a takeover offer of $A12.60 per share for the shares it does not hold in Gloucester.

Gloucester is yet to receive any formal documents on the proposal from Noble.

Gloucester was trading up 0.83% in mid-morning trade today at $12.20.