Newcastle Weekly Coal Exports Rise 10%; Ship Queue Increases

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Wednesday, 08 July 2009

Coal shipments from Australia’s Newcastle port, the world’s biggest export harbor for the fuel, gained 10 percent last week while the number of vessels waiting to load increased. The volume exported in the week ended 7 a.m. local time yesterday climbed to 1.86 million metric tons from 1.7 million tons a week earlier, Newcastle Port Corp. said on its Web site. Forty-seven ships, waiting to load 3.8 million tons of coal, were outside the harbor, the most since Dec. 24, 2007, when the queue was the same length.
Coal ships queued for an average 11.7 days to load, down from 14.3 days a week earlier, Newcastle Port said. The waiting time compared with 0.34 day for general cargo vessels, it said.
Power-station coal prices at Newcastle port, a benchmark for Asia, rose 6.5 percent to $73.13 a ton in the week ended July 3, according to the globalCOAL NEWC Index.
Rio Tinto Group, Xstrata Plc and BHP Billiton Ltd. are among mining companies that ship coal through Newcastle.

Source: Bloomberg