Coal news and updates

European physical coal prices were little changed in thin trading on Wednesday as most European utilities are delaying new orders until early 2014.

 

Coal prices for import into Europe's main coal terminals at Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp (ARA) saw a bid/offer spread of $82.60/$83.50 a tonne on Wednesday afternoon, compared with a last settlement price on Tuesday of $83.85 per tonne on electronic brokerage globalCOAL.

 

January South African cargoes from its Richards Bay export terminal saw a bid/offer range of $83.25/$83.50 compared with Tuesday's last settlement of $83.35 a tonne.

 

In Australia, January shipments from its Newcastle port traded at $85.75 a tonne, unchanged from Tuesday's close.

 

Traders said that Wednesday's activity had been very low and that market fundamentals had not changed since Tuesday.

 

"Europe's December weather outlook is fairly cold, but it's apparently getting milder in early 2014 so we're hoping to feed off our stocks rather than buy new cargoes early next year," one coal buyer at a utility said.

 

Europe will probably experience below average temperatures in December but conditions are expected to get milder in the new year, meteorologists said in their latest updates.

 

On the supply side outlook for next year, British lawmakers blocked an amendment to the government's Energy Bill on Wednesday which sought to force old and inefficient coal power stations to comply with new regulations to reduce carbon emissions.

 

The amendment would have extended the so-called emissions performance standard (EPS) to cover old and inefficient coal plants, as well as new ones, unless they were fitted with costly carbon capture and storage technology

 

"Many in the coal market expected this amendment to pass, so those people will probably have to revise their 2014 coal demand outlook upwards for Britain," another coal trader said.

 

 

Source: Reuters