White Energy Company has unveiled plans to buy two metallurgical coal assets in the US and Queensland, and investors sent the stock up more than 300 per cent in response. The rally made the miner one of the week’s sharpest movers after a proposal that reaches from Alabama to the Surat Basin.

The biggest piece of the deal is Lolley No.1, an underground met coal project in Alabama with an on-site coal handling and preparation plant, rail and barge access. White Energy said the mine is currently on care and maintenance, but it is planning a staged restart that could deliver first production as soon as 12 months after recommissioning.

That timeline is what gives the market move its edge. A restart plan attached to an existing asset is easier for investors to price than a greenfield coal bet, and the company paired that with a second target in Queensland that adds scale rather than just optionality. The Tin Hut Creek project gives White Energy a 4,000-square-kilometre footprint in the Surat Basin, a region known for historical coal-bearing sequences within the Walloon Subgroup.

White Energy is set to take over an option held by private company Oceltip Coal 2 to buy Tin Hut Creek for $4 million in cash. If Tin Hut becomes a mining lease, White Energy has agreed to pay a further $1 million success fee, in cash or shares, but the company has not said when either transaction will close. That gap matters because the stock has already run hard while Lolley No.1 remains on care and maintenance.

The timing of the surge also fits a broader market that has been moving on geopolitics and inflation worries this week. Gold dropped nearly 4 per cent over the period, briefly sliding to A$6000 an ounce before recovering to near A$6300 on Friday, and White Energy was named this week’s Bulls N' Bears ASX Runner of the Week. For now, the story is simple: investors are pricing the promise of two coal assets before the paperwork is done.