Australia's Aurizon H1 underlying profit up 18 pct

MELBOURNE, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Top Australian coal hauler Aurizon Holdings Ltd AZJ.AX reported an 18 percent rise in first-half underlying profit on Monday spurred by strong coal volumes, and raised its forecast for coal haulage this year.

It said it now expects coal haulage volumes to increase by up to 9 percent to 207-212 million tonnes in the year to June 2014, up from an earlier forecast for about 5 percent growth, assuming no further disruptions from heavy rain.

Underlying profit rose to A$263 million for the six months to December from A$222 million a year earlier. That beat a forecast from UBS for an underlying profit of A$258 million.

However Aurizon reported a 39 percent drop in net profit to A$107 million on the back of job cutting costs and A$197 million in writedowns, flagged in November, due to a planned culling of its trains over the next four years and pared projects, including a railway for Glencore Xstrata's shelved Wandoan project.

The company, formerly called QR National, declared a first-half dividend of 8 cents, nearly double what it paid a year earlier, in line with its new policy of paying out 60-70 percent of earnings.

(Reporting by Sonali Paul; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

((Sonali.Paul@thomsonreuters.com)(+61 3 9286 1419)(Reuters Messaging: sonali.paul.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))

Keywords: AUSTRALIA AURIZON/EARNINGS