UC RUSAL completes sale of Kazakh coalfield stake

MOSCOW, Dec 24 (Reuters) - Russia's United Company RUSAL, the world's largest aluminium producer, said on Wednesday it had completed the sale of 50 percent of a coalfield to its Kazakh partner, state firm Samruk-Kazyna, formerly Samruk Holding. In April, UC RUSAL agreed to sell the Ekibastuz coalfield in the region of the Bogatyr and Severny mines in the north of the Central Asian republic for $345 million. [ID:L17298370]

UC RUSAL said it expected to complete all legal and organisational procedures linked with the deal by September 2008.

By 2020, the Bogatyr and Severny are expected to produce 57 million tonnes of coal per year. Before then the partners plan to convert an obsolete coal transportation scheme by truck and rail into a new network that will include a conveyor belt.

(Reporting by Aleksandras Budrys, editing by Anthony Barker)