Coal Prices at Newcastle Little Changed, Exports Jump

By Jesse Riseborough

Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Power-station coal prices at Australia's Newcastle port, a benchmark for Asia, were little changed last week as supply constraints at a storm-affected port in Vietnam offset declines in the price of oil.

The weekly index for power-station coal prices at the New South Wales state port fell 26 cents, or 0.2 percent, to $161.89 a metric ton in the week ended Aug. 29, according to the globalCOAL NEWC Index. Exports from the port in the week ended 7 a.m. today jumped 31 percent to 1.98 million tons, Newcastle Port Corp. said on its Web site.

Prices may remain at similar levels in the coming months as supply constraints are offset by a weaker oil price, Mark Pervan, senior commodity analyst at ANZ in Melbourne, said in an Aug. 26 report. Storm damage at the port of Cam Cha in Vietnam, the largest supplier of power-station coal to China, cut shipments by about 13 percent in August, Macquarie Group Ltd. said in a report today, while oil prices fell 7 percent last month.

The weekly globalCOAL index is up 80 percent so far this year and rose to a record $194.79 a ton in the week ended July 4. The monthly index fell 13 percent to $160.90 a ton in August, from $184.51 the previous month.

Xstrata Plc, the world's largest exporter of power-station coal, BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Group are among mining companies that ship coal through Newcastle.

A total of 18 ships, waiting to load 1.55 million tons of coal, were lined up outside the port, Newcastle Port said today.

Coal ships waited 11.78 days to load in the week ended Sept. 1, up from 10.95 days a week earlier, it said. The waiting time compared with 1.05 days for general cargo vessels.

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