Australian Thermal Coal Hits $130.93/Metric Ton - Seven-Week High - Bloomberg

[hatrack]

April 21 (Bloomberg) -- Thermal coal prices at Australia's Newcastle port, a benchmark for Asia, rose for a third week as constraints on exports in New South Wales and Queensland limit supplies amid rising demand from power generators.

The weekly index for power-station coal prices at the New South Wales port gained $5.51, or 4.4 percent, to $130.93 a metric ton in the week ended April 18, a seven-week high, according to the globalCOAL NEWC Index.

The port, the world's biggest coal-export harbor, increased shipments of the fuel by less than expected in the first quarter as wet weather and a lack of available coal crimped loadings early in the period. Xstrata Plc, the world's largest exporter of power-station coal, in February declared force majeure on deliveries from its Newlands mine in Queensland after heavy rain.

``It's still a very tight market,'' said Clyde Henderson, a Sydney-based analyst at Barlow Jonker Pty, a unit of Wood Mackenzie Consultants Ltd. ``It will be quite a long time before things do much in New South Wales or Queensland and it's still not exactly wonderful out of South Africa and China as well.''

EDIT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=aZzdEH6npfpI&refer=australia

[depakid]

1. "constraints on exports"

The New South Wales government (the most corrupt in the nation) just approved a third Newcastle terminal at Kooragang Island.

How they're going to get more ships into and out of the harbor (we're not talking Long Beach here), I can't imagine- because they're already lined up down the coast farther than binoculars can see.

Believe me, not everyone is happy about it:

http://www.risingtide.org.au/exportexpansion