Newcastle Coal Exports Drop 6 Percent; Queue of Ships Shortens

By Jesse Riseborough

Aug. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Coal exports from Australia's Newcastle, the world's biggest export harbor for the fuel, fell 6 percent last week and fewer ships left the port.

The volume shipped in the week ended 7 a.m. local time yesterday dropped to 1.44 million metric tons from 1.53 million tons a week earlier, Newcastle Port Corp. said today on its Web site. A total of 21 vessels carrying coal left the port in the week ended Aug. 16, four fewer than a week earlier, Newcastle Port said in an e-mailed report.

Transportation bottlenecks in Australia have restricted supplies of power-station coal, helping to boost prices from the port in New South Wales state to a record last month. Contract prices may rise a further 24 percent next year to $155 a ton on continuing supply constraints and rising demand from Asia, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. said in a report.

A total of 27 ships, waiting to load 2.4 million tons of coal, were lined up outside the port, down from 29 ships. Coal ships waited 9.8 days to load coal, down from 10 days a week earlier, Newcastle Port said. The waiting time compared with 0.59 day for general cargo vessels last week, it said.

Rio Tinto Group, Xstrata Plc and BHP Billiton Ltd. are among mining companies that ship coal through Newcastle. During the week, 13 ships were bound for Japan, three each for South Korea and Taiwan, and one each for Malaysia and Noumea, it said.

The weekly price index for thermal coal shipped from Newcastle snapped a five-week losing streak last week, rising 5 percent after a cyclone damaged the largest coal port in Vietnam, cutting global exports. It may take six months to repair the port, potentially cutting exports as much as 12 million tons, Macquarie Group Ltd. said Aug. 8.

Coal Prices

The weekly index of thermal coal prices at Newcastle port gained $7.74 to $163.90 a ton in the week ended Aug. 15, according to the globalCOAL NEWC Index. Prior to that, the measure had dropped 20 percent from a record $194.79 a ton reached in the week ended July 4.

``We believe the thermal coal market fundamentals could get stronger, with constrained supply conditions in Australia and South Africa met by booming demand in Asia,'' Mark Pervan, senior commodity analyst at ANZ in Melbourne, said in a report dated yesterday. China may introduce a 10 percent tax on thermal coal exports from Aug. 20, Pervan said, citing unnamed reports.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jesse Riseborough in Melbourne at jriseborough@bloomberg.net.