By Jesse Riseborough
Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Coal exports from Australia’s Newcastle, the world’s biggest export harbor for the fuel, rose 59 percent last week while the number of ships waiting outside the port jumped to the highest in almost five months.
The volume shipped in the week ended 7 a.m. local time yesterday rose to 1.9 million metric tons from a nine-month low of 1.2 million tons a week earlier, Newcastle Port Corp. said today on its Web site. A total of 41 ships, waiting to load 3.4 million tons of coal, were lined up outside the port.
Prices for power-station coal from the port, a benchmark for Asia, slumped to a 13-month low last week amid rising stockpiles of the fuel in China.
Coal ships waited 11.69 days to load coal in the week, up from 9.26 days a week earlier, Newcastle Port said. The waiting time compared with 0.69 day for general cargo vessels last week.
A total of 17 vessels carrying coal left Newcastle in the week ended Nov. 29, Newcastle Port said today in an e-mailed report. Nine ships were bound for Japan, three for South Korea, three for Taiwan and one each for China and Malaysia, it said.
The weekly index for thermal coal prices at the New South Wales port fell $7.50 to $78.19 a metric ton in the week ended Nov. 28 to the lowest since Oct. 26, 2007, according to the globalCOAL NEWC Index. Rio Tinto Group, Xstrata Plc and BHP Billiton Ltd. are among mining companies that ship coal through Newcastle.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jesse Riseborough in Melbourne at jriseborough@bloomberg.net
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