BHP Says Hay Pt. Seas Still Too Rough for Coal Export

By Angela Macdonald-Smith

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest mining company, said seas at the Hay Point coal-export terminal in Queensland are still too rough as a result of a tropical cyclone for ships to berth.

Loading at Hay Point, owned by BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance, the largest exporter of coal used in steelmaking, “will only begin when it is safe to do so,” Samantha Evans, a spokeswoman for Melbourne-based BHP, said today in an e-mail. Gladstone port, further to the south, re-opened this morning, she said, without commenting on ship-berthing at the site.

Australian authorities evacuated resort islands off Queensland’s coast during the weekend and put emergency services on alert as the cyclone brought damaging winds and high seas. The Bureau of Meteorology is warning of “very high to phenomenal seas” in areas in the region of the storm, a category 4 cyclone, the second-highest ranking.

Ship loadings are also yet to resume at Dalrymple Bay, adjacent to Hay Point, said Greg Smith, operations manager at the Babcock & Brown Infrastructure Group unit that owns the port.

“There is quite a large ground swell that is being generated by the cyclone, so probably the first ship they will try and berth later this afternoon or this evening, obviously depending on whether that swell comes down,” Smith said in a telephone interview.

Dalrymple Bay, Australia’s second-biggest coal-export terminal, is used by miners including Anglo American Plc, Rio Tinto Group and Macarthur Coal Ltd.

Trains, Ships

QR, the state-owned company that owns the coal rail system in Queensland, said yesterday it re-opened the Blackwater, Goonyella and Newlands coal rail systems that were shut down during the weekend because of heavy rain. Hay Point resumed accepting trains yesterday morning, Evans said. Coal trains are also arriving at Dalrymple Bay, Smith said.

The resumption of exports from Dalrymple Bay also depends on the return of the coal ships that sailed for calmer waters in advance of the cyclone, Smith said. Only two of 21 ships that sailed off have returned, with all the carriers that headed south yet to return to anchor, he said.

The vessels at Hay Point are back at anchor, Evans said.

Hamish was 320 kilometers (199 miles) east of Gladstone and 140 kilometers northeast of sandy Cape at 7 a.m. local time today, moving southeast at 11 kilometers an hour. The storm is expected to slow and weaken during the day, then turn toward the coast tomorrow, the bureau said on its Web site.

To contact the reporter on this story: Angela Macdonald-Smith in Sydney at amacdonaldsm@bloomberg.net