Mount Pleasant is a large-scale, thermal coal asset with total marketable reserves of 474 million tonnes.

With the recently announced binding agreement for the sale of Rio Tinto’s interest in the neighbouring Bengalla Coal Joint Venture to New Hope Corporation, this amounts to $830 million of agreed sales, Rio Tinto Copper & Coal CEO Jean-Sebastien Jacques said.

“These agreements for over $US800 million in asset sales deliver significant value for our shareholders, with the potential for future royalties from Mount Pleasant,” he said.

“We believe Mount Pleasant can have a very positive future under its new owners with different priorities for development and capital allocation.”

Rio Tinto has now announced or completed $4.7 billion of divestments since January 2013.

The Mount Pleasant sale is subject to certain conditions precedent being met, including completion of the restructure of Coal & Allied and regulatory approvals, and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2016.

Rio Tinto manages Coal & Allied's coal operations which include Mount Thorley Warkworth, Hunter Valley Operations and Bengalla.

Coal & Allied obtained an authority over the Mount Pleasant deposit in 1992.

Exploration, mining studies and an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) were completed in 1997 with development consent granted in 1999.

The proposed Mount Pleasant mine would be an open cut mine, using a truck and shovel method. Around 350 employees would work in shifts to keep the mine operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The deposit is centred in the Wittingham Coal Measures of the Hunter Coalfield, which is part of a Permian coal basin known as the Sydney basin.

After being washed and prepared for sale, the coal would be loaded onto trains for transportation 115km to the Port Waratah Coal Terminal in Newcastle to be shipped to international customers.

Rio Tinto last year reached a binding agreement for the sale of Coal & Allied’s 40% in the Bengalla Coal Joint Venture in Australia to New Hope Corporation Limited for $US606 million.

Hunter Valley Operations and Mount Thorley Warkworth are multi-seam, multi-pit, open-cut mining operations that produced 5.2Mt of semi-soft coking coal and 19.5Mt of thermal coal in 2015.