Mineralogy announces market purchases of Waratah Coal Inc. common shares

Mineralogy Canada Acquisition Corp., a direct wholly-owned subsidiary of Mineralogy Pty Ltd., announces that on December 18, 2008 it acquired from Mineralogy 10,754,500 common shares of Waratah Coal Inc., representing approximately 17.5% of the issued and outstanding Waratah common shares, on a fully-diluted basis. Under the terms of a share exchange agreement between the parties dated December 18, 2008, Mineralogy Canada acquired the Waratah common shares in exchange for issuing to Mineralogy 10,754,500 common shares of Mineralogy Canada.

Mineralogy Canada also announces that, on December 19, 2008, it acquired 44,873,856 Waratah common shares, representing approximately 73.2% of the issued and outstanding Waratah common shares, on a fully-diluted basis, pursuant to its offer to acquire all of the issued and outstanding Waratah common shares, as described in the formal offer and take-over bid circular dated October 3, 2008, as amended and supplemented by notices of extension and variation dated October 24, 2008, November 24, 2008 and December 4, 2008 and by a notice of extension dated December 17, 2008 (the “Offer”). Together with the 10,754,500 Waratah common shares acquired by it on December 18, 2008, Mineralogy Canada now owns 55,628,356 Waratah common shares, representing approximately 90.7% of the issued and outstanding Waratah common shares, on a fully-diluted basis.

As described in Mineralogy Canada’s notice of extension dated December 17, 2008, the Offer has been extended to January 5, 2008 and Mineralogy Canada intends to acquire all of the Waratah common shares not tendered to the Offer pursuant to a “second stage transaction” likely to be completed within 60 to 90 days following the expiry of the Offer.