Coal news and updates

Newcastle coal shipments rise 27% on week to 3.01 mt

Shipments of thermal and coking coal exports through Newcastle's three coal terminals in eastern Australia surged past 3 million mt in the seven-day period to 7 am Sydney time Monday, (2100 GMT Sunday), marking a 27.6% increase week on week, Newcastle Port Corp. said in an operations report.

The port's coal exports tally reached 3.01 million mt in the latest reporting period, when 27 ships arrived in the port. The latest shipment quantity was up from 2.36 million mt, or 29 vessel arrivals, in the seven days ended September 9, NPC said Monday.

Ships entering the Newcastle port to load coal exports at its three terminals waited an average of 6 days off the port last week, down from a waiting time of 8.75 days in the preceding week period, NPC said.

A lower average waiting time per ship indicates that congestion at the port has eased over the week.

Port Waratah Coal Services' two coal terminals at Newcastle port loaded 2.21 million mt of coal on to ships and 25 vessels sailed from the facilities in the seven days to Sunday, said the Hunter Valley Coal Chain Coordinator in a report, Sunday.

Ship-loading quantities are running at an annualized rate of 115 million mt from the two PWCS terminals, and their combined ship-loading capacity has increased to 145 million mt/year with the completion of an upgrade last week.

PWCS' export total last week was similar to the September 8-ended week, when the company's loading volume was 2.16 million mt with 23 ship sailings, said the report.

Coal miners kept up their heavy railing schedule for coal exports last week, and Newcastle port's in-bound total for rail deliveries was 3.16 million mt, similar to 3.22 million mt in the week earlier reporting period, according to HVCCC data. TAKE-OR-PAY CONTRACTS

Take-or-pay contracts mean that coal producers are encouraged to use rail and port ship-loading capacity in the Hunter Valley coal chain irrespective of market prices, and they have therefore sought to maximize coal shipments through Newcastle port, according to market sources.

Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group's shipping volumes from its coal terminal at Newcastle port were not mentioned in the HVCCC report for last week, though the difference between shipping data for coal exports from Newcastle port and from the PWCS terminals was around 800,000 mt last week.

The number of ships queuing to load coal exports from the PWCS coal terminals at the Newcastle port has stabilized in the high 20s, and there were 24 ships in the terminals' queue Sunday compared with 26 ships a week ago on September 8.

"Based on current terminal demand, the queue at PWCS is estimated to be 26 [ships] at the end of September," said HVCCC in its latest weekly update.

In its report, HVCCC said that coal producers were forecasting coal exports demand of 9 million mt for September and 9.7 million mt for October.

Meanwhile, Port Waratah Coal Services said in a statement issued at the weekend that the company was pressing ahead with environmental approval processes for its Terminal 4 project, and was to open to the public this week a six-week exhibition on the proposed 70 million mt/year coal terminal.

"Large complex projects like Terminal 4 take many years to develop, so we have to continue planning through the ups and downs of the various market cycles," said PWCS chief executive Hennie du Plooy.

The construction schedule for the Terminal 4 project has been pushed out to 2018 on soft coal market conditions.

Source: Platts