The New Hope Corporation Ltd (ASX: NHC) share price sunk around 10% after revealing a painful HY26 result.
New Hope is one of the largest coal miners in Australia.
New Hope FY26 half-year result
Here are some of the main highlights from report for the six months to 31 January 2026:
- Coal sales up 2.95 to 5.6mt
- Underlying EBITDA (EBITDA explained) fell 58.4% to $215 million
- Underlying net profit before tax down 78.7% to $88.4 million
- Statutory net profit down 84% to $54.3 million
- Cashflow from operations declined 41.6% to $185 million
- Interim dividend per share down 47.4% to $0.10
What happened?
New Hope suffered a significant decline of profitability during this result.
The company revealed that its realised/sold price (including hedging) suffered a 22.7% decrease to $139.4 per tonne.
This meant New Hope’s underlying margin (including hedging suffered a 51.1% decrease to $40.9 per tonne.
New Hope saw an increase of costs, which also didn’t help. Production costs (free on rail) costs grew 6.4% to $59.4 per tonne, while port and rail costs rose 28.8% to $28.2 million.
What’s the outlook for the New Hope share price?
The business delivered actual saleable production of 10.7mt in FY25 and it’s expecting production to increase each year to FY28 with more than 14mt of saleable production with a larger contribution from the Bengalla Mine, New Acland Mine and the new Maxwell Mine.
In the long-term, the business is aiming for around 15mt of saleable production. The New Acland Mine is ramping up to around 5mt per year, while the Maxwell Mine is aiming for around 6mt per year.
The company said it’s exploring the continuation of operations at Bengalla Mine. The Bengalla growth project is providing increased output capability.
The coal price has jumped in recent weeks. The coal price averaged US$108 per tonne during the HY26 period. It was slowly but steadily increasing in the last few months but jumped up to US$130 per tonne following the Iran conflict outbreak.
Since the start of 2026, the New Hope share price has gone up 24% – it’s only down 5% today at the time of writing.
I don’t see myself investing in a coal business – I can’t see coal demand increasing over the long-term unless there’s a huge increase of demand for energy.
If there were to be a good time to invest in it, it’d be when coal prices were weak, such as during most of 2020, rather than right now.
There are other ASX dividend shares I’d look at other options for large dividend income and diversification of my portfolio.
