The coal producer has also waived many conditions and its revised offer is now subject to a 50.1% minimum acceptance condition.

New Hope managed to get a 4.94% stake of NEC through its previous $1.50 per share offer before the Takeovers Panel became involved in December.

On January 18, the panel found that there were deficiencies in NEC’s initial supplementary target statement.

The panel declared there were no unacceptable circumstances and helped NEC make further disclosures.

Notably, the panel has no issue with the independent expert’s preferred lower valuation range of $2.70-3.99 per NEC share in the target statement – much higher than the offers made from New Hope so far.

New Hope has been on the hunt for investments since it made a $1.7 billion post-tax profit from selling its New Saraji project to BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance, with this deal struck back in July 2008.

“Obviously we have been looking at a lot of different companies in this space and this present time we think Northern Energy is our best target,” New Hope chairman Robert Millner told ILN back in October.

He added that NEC did not have the capital to develop its deposits.

NEC is on track to start production from its 500,000 tonnes per annum Colton hard coking coal project within its Maryborough project in 2012 and has a port allocation for this amount from the first-stage development of the Wiggins Island Coal Export Terminal.

While the new terminal is not expected to start shipping under its stage 1 capacity until 2014, NEC already holds an allocation through Barney Point for the interim period.

The explorer’s Elimatta open cut project in the Surat Basin hosts 106 million tonnes of marketable reserves with mine construction slated for late 2011.

NEC shares surged by 39.5% to $1.55 on the day the $1.50 takeover offer was first announced.

NEC shares are up 6c this morning to $1.73.