88娱乐城
At BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance鈥檚 wholly owned and operated Hay Point coal terminal in Queensland, coking coal exports jumped 19% in April from the previous month.
According to data from the Ports Corporation of Queensland, Australia鈥檚 largest coal export facility shipped 3.17 million tonnes of coal in April, even beating the 2.71Mt shipped in April last year by 17%.
The neighbouring Dalrymple Bay port, which serves 10 northern Bowen Basin producers including BMA, shipped 4.04Mt in April, a jump of 22% from March.
While the figure is 109,780t short of exports in April 2008, it was 56% higher than this year鈥檚 February exports of 2.58Mt, the lowest monthly trade for at least two years.
On the boost in trade, Felix Resources chief executive Brian Flannery told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper the company was likely to sell 10 shipments to China this year and possibly more, after making one shipment in the last four years.
Last week Fat Prophets senior resources analyst Gavin Wendt told International Longwall News that coking coal was very much tied to iron ore and questioned whether the Chinese were stockpiling iron ore or actually using it to produce steel.
He expects thermal coal to have a stronger outlook over the next 12 months and said it would take a bit longer for coking coal to recover.
Newcastle spot coal prices have broken through the $US63/t barrier, with the globalCOAL NEWC index ending up 2.35% to $64.83/t for the week ending Friday.
South African prices also rose last week as globalCOAL鈥檚 index for Richards Bay increased 44c to $56.79/t, while the globalCOAL DES ARA index climbed 3.83% to $65.07/t.
At the recent McCloskey European Coal Outlook conference, Macquarie analysts reported on a bullish outlook on Chinese demand from Philip Gasteen, the head of marketing and logistics at Asian coal and electricity producer Banpu, who in effect sees Chinese imports rising by 40Mt this year.
Patersons Securities coal analyst Andrew Harrington also told ILN last week he expected to see some strengthening in thermal coal prices as less metallurgical coal was dumped onto the thermal coal market.
China has been the only nation to increase its coking coal imports so far this year.
According to Goldman Sachs JBWere, this is partly due to local government clampdowns on unacceptable health and safety standards across the small mine sector, which produces the majority of China鈥檚 coking coal.
Government officials were forced to change coal mining regulations after an underground gas explosion at the Tunlan Colliery in northern Shanxi Province killed 78 people and injured 114 in February, receiving considerable media attention around the world.
China鈥檚 coal industry has suffered other well-publicised mining accidents, which have resulted in a further 21 deaths in the last fortnight.
