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SYDNEY—Power-station coal prices at Australia’s
Newcastle port, a benchmark for Japan, South Korea and
Taiwan, rose 0.5 percent to near a record as rain cut
output at mines in Australia’s Queensland state.
The
price for coal, excluding shipping costs, for delivery
within three months rose 44 cents to $89.85 a metric ton
in the week ended January 18, according to the
globalCOAL NEWC Index, an Asian benchmark calculated
each Friday. Coal prices surged 73 percent in 2007 and
reached a record $91.77 a ton in the week ended January
4.
Above-average rainfall in central
Queensland
is reducing output at mines including Xstrata Plc’s
Newlands and Collinsville sites, and Rio Tinto Group’s
Kestrel mine. Heavy rainfall also cut exports from
Indonesia, amid rising purchases by China which are
resulting in supply shortfalls for customers in Japan
and South Korea.
“Quite a few of the mines in Queensland have an awful
lot of water in them, a lot of the open-cut mines,
including at least one of the thermal coal mines,” said
Clyde Henderson, a Sydney-based coal analyst at Barlow
Jonker Pty, a unit of Wood Mackenzie Consultants Ltd.
Coal
rail transportation on both the Newlands and Goonyella
networks in central Queensland was halted on January 18
by flooding, Australian Associated Press reported. While
the rail closures will mostly affect coking coal used in
steelmaking, some thermal coal is shipped through the
networks,
Henderson
said.
Coal
demand in China, the world’s biggest consumer and
producer of the fuel, may rise 5.3 percent to 2.76
billion metric tons this year, an official at the Coal
Sales and Transportation Association of China said last
week. Consumption rose 9.5 percent last year.
China
will be a net importer of 18 million tons this year,
after having “nearly balanced” export and import volumes
last year, UBS analysts, led by Ghee Peh in Hong Kong,
said in a December 6 report.
Newcastle
will have the capacity to load 95 million tons of coal
this year, less than producers’ demand, according to
Port Waratah Coal Services Ltd., the operator of the two
coal terminals at Newcastle. Last year the terminal
increased shipments of the fuel by 6.3 percent to 84.8
million tons, short of a target of 90.5 million.
Twenty-three vessels carrying coal left the port in the
week ended January 19, Newcastle Port Corp. said today
in an e-mailed report. Sixteen of the ships were headed
for Japan, three for each of Taiwan and South Korea and
one for New Caledonia, it said in the report.
There
were 28 vessels queuing outside the port to load coal as
of midnight January 20, the Hunter Valley Coal Chain
Logistics Team, coordinator of coal movements through
the rail system and port at
Newcastle,
said on its web site. (Bloomberg) |
