The lower result was due to lower interest income and less production from the Zululand Anthracite Colliery in South Africa.

Total run-of-mine production from the underground mine reached 753,600 tonnes, 7% down from the previous year.

But the Benga coal mine in Mozambique officially opened in April and is on track to start first exports of premium hard coking coal in the second half of 2011.

This will follow the completion of stage one development to reach 5.3 million tonnes per annum of ROM production.

Riversdale aims to complete the stage two and three ramp-ups to reach 20Mtpa ROM coal by 2013.

Next door to Benga is Riversdale’s $2 billion Zambeze coal project which has already lured Chinese investment.

Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation is expected to finalise a joint venture agreement in October to get 40% of the project for three milestone-linked tranches that total $800 million.

In June, Riversdale lifted the total resources of the project from 1.7 billion tonnes to more than 9Bt, while Benga has more than 4Bt.

Last month, Riversdale completed a $337 million capital raising while it had $247.3 million in cash at the end of June.

The company owns 65% of the Benga joint venture while Tata Steel holds 35%.

Riversdale shares are down 1c to $9.20 this morning.