MELBOURNE, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Australia's New Hope (NHC.AX), opens new tab said on Tuesday it is focused on organic growth and does not plan to compete for Anglo American's (AAL.L), opens new tab Australian coal mines, after reporting earnings that were cushioned from a drop in coal prices by higher output.

The thermal coal producer said profit fell 7.7% in the year ended July 31 and declared a final dividend of 15 Australian cents a share, beating market expectations. Its share price jumped as much as 8%.

"We did look at the (Anglo American) assets, but for us it's not a priority... Our key focus is our organic growth," CEO Rob Bishop said in an interview.

Anglo put its Australian metallurgical coal mines up for sale last year as it sought to simplify itself after fending off a takeover bid by BHP (BHP.AX), opens new tab.

It agreed a $53 billion tie up with Canada's Teck Resources (TECKb.TO), opens new tab last week, and almost sold $3.78 billion worth of assets to U.S. peer Peabody (BTU.N), opens new tab before a fire at one of its mines torpedoed the deal last month. The London-listed miner is widely expected to put those assets back on the market.

New Hope had been interested in Anglo's 33.3% stake in Jellinbah mine in Queensland state, Bishop said, before Anglo agreed to sell to existing shareholder Zashvin for $1.1 billion.

Instead, New Hope has increased its holding in Malabar Resources, a producer of steel-making coal, by 3% to 22.98%. It is also expanding its New Acland mine in New South Wales' Hunter Valley to 5 million metric tons.

Rail network constraints led to a "significant" inventory build-up at New Acland in the quarter ended April 30, the miner said.

Challenging weather and logistics constraints that impacted production at the end of the last financial year have spilled into the early part of the current year, Bishop said. The miner did not provide production guidance for 2026.

However, the financial environment for thermal coal miners is improving, he said.

"We are just about to renew our insurance for the operations and we are seeing another year of reductions in premiums. That's a big change from four to five years ago when we were seriously considering going down the road of self insurance," he said.

New Hope logged net profit after tax of A$439.4 million ($293 million) versus A$475.9 million a year earlier, missing a Visible Alpha estimate of A$455.9 million.

Saleable coal production increased 18.1% to 10.7 million tons and sales increased 21.4%. Its average sale price fell 14.3% to A$157 a ton.

($1 = 1.4995 Australian dollars)

Reporting by Melanie Burton in Melbourne, and Sherin Sunny and Rajasik Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Christopher Cushing

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

New Hope focused on organic growth; no plans to pursue Anglo assets