Through the agreement, the company has agreed to modifications in its financial disclosures centering around two primary areas.
Firstly, in the future, the company has agreed to enhance its disclosure around all the published scenarios when referencing IEA's World Energy Outlook.
Secondly, the company has agreed that any future statements concerning the difficulty of making particular projections or predictions shall be accompanied by a statement that Peabody has made projections of the impact of scenarios involving certain potential laws and regulations relating to climate change or coal, which could result in materially adverse effects on its markets or company.
There is no other action associated with this settlement, no admission or denial of wrongdoing and no financial penalty.
The most recent disclosures planned for the company's third quarter 2015 Form 10-Q address the matters raised by the New York Attorney General, according to Peabody.
“To evaluate risks and allocate capital, Peabody has examined the potential impact of hypothetical future laws on coal markets,” it said.
“Moving forward, Peabody believes that technology is the bridge to a low-emissions future for a world experiencing rising electricity demand to satisfy urbanization and offer a higher quality of life.
“Peabody has been among the most vocal companies worldwide in advocating clean coal technologies, including greater deployment of high-efficiency low-emissions coal-fuelled plants and development of next-generation carbon capture, use and storage technologies.”
Peabody said it has been involved in major global initiatives to reduce carbon emissions for nearly two decades.
Among other current activities, Peabody is the only non-Chinese equity partner in GreenGen, a 250 megawatt integrated gasification combined cycle power plant in Tianjin, China.
GreenGen is expected to increase generation to 650 megawatts in later stages and plans to add carbon dioxide capture for enhanced oil recovery.
Peabody is also a founding member of the COAL 21 Fund in Australia supporting technology research and demonstration, and a founding member of the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute in Canberra, which has a mandate of developing carbon capture projects.
