By Jesse Riseborough
Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Coal shipments from Australia’s Newcastle, the world’s biggest export harbor for the fuel, fell 25 percent last week while the number of vessels waiting outside the port also declined.
The volume shipped in the week ended 7 a.m. local time yesterday fell to 1.38 million metric tons from 1.85 million tons a week earlier, Newcastle Port Corp. said today on its Web site. A total of 17 ships, waiting to load 1.5 million tons of coal, were lined up outside the port, down from 21 a week ago.
Coal ships waited 8.7 days to load coal, up from 5.3 days a week earlier, Newcastle Port said. The waiting time compared with 1.3 day for general cargo vessels last week, it said.
A total of 19 vessels carrying coal left Newcastle in the week ended Feb. 14, Newcastle Port said today in an e-mailed report. Fourteen ships were bound for Japan, two for Mexico, and one each for China, South Korea and Spain, it said.
Power plant coal prices at Australia’s Newcastle port, a benchmark for Asia, rose $2.07, or 2.6 percent, to $80.24 a ton in the week to Feb. 13, 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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