Australia's Newcastle Thermal Coal Price Rises for Third Week
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.'' South Africa's mining output declined for a fifth month in February after a national power shortage, Pretoria-based Statistics South Africa said April 10 on its Web site. China turned a net coal importer in the first three months of the year as it reduced exports to ensure domestic supply during the heaviest snowstorms in decades. The weekly globalCOAL index is up 46 percent so far this year. Force majeure is a legal clause allowing a supplier to miss contracted deliveries due to circumstances beyond its control. Shipments at Newcastle's two coal terminals rose 6.8 percent to 22.26 million metric tons in the three months ended March 31, from 20.84 million a year earlier, Port Waratah Coal Services Ltd. said in a report on its Web site this month. That's an annualized rate of 89.5 million tons, less than the planned 95 million tons. source: Bloomberg 21 April 2008
