The Whitehaven Coal Ltd (ASX: WHC) share price is on the rebound this morning.
Shares of the coal producer are currently up 3.57% after they slid 12.25% from Monday's closing bell to the close of Wednesday's trading session.
The Whitehaven Coal share price is currently $9.86, having earlier made a high of $10.15 and a low of $9.60.
While there are no new developments to report for Whitehaven, some scheduled changes to its fundamentals have kicked in today, which could be inspiring optimism on behalf of the bulls.
Let's investigate what's happening with this ASX coal share.
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What's going on with the Whitehaven Coal share price?
As the Fool reported on Wednesday, Whitehaven announced that it would commence a second on-market buyback at its annual general meeting.
The first round of buybacks is due to kick off today, which could be adding buoyancy to the Whitehaven Coal share price.
With the second on-market buyback, Whitehaven has committed to buy back around 25% of its shares outstanding over the next 12 months. My Fool colleague Brooke notes that this is in addition to the 10% share buyback that it completed earlier in October.
Coal makes a recovery
On a more macro level, the spot price of coal is also up 0.75% this morning, according to MarketsInsider. The commodity has taken a beating since the end of September, dropping 17.79% to $270 USD per ton.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported this morning that energy prices, on the whole, could decline 11% in 2023, having spiked following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Headwinds facing energy prices were said to include lower global economic activity as well as China's continuation of its zero-Covid policies, the article said.
The article went on to say that Australian coal and US natural gas prices are expected to double their average over the last five years by 2024, and that coal production is expected to remain strong.
Whitehaven Coal share price snapshot
The Whitehaven Coal share price is up almost 280% year to date. It's beating the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) by a wide margin — the broader index is down 8% over the same period.
The ASX coal share has a market capitalisation of around $8.85 billion.
