Newcastle coal exports fall 8.5% in September

8-Oct-2018

Australian coal exports from the key port of Newcastle declined 8.5% year on year in September to 8.6m tonnes amid production issues, port data showed.

Shipments were also nearly 4% lower than in the previous month, while stocks declined by 40% over the course of the month to 1.2m tonnes.

Recent dry weather in Australia has meant less coal could be washed – to reduce ash content and improve the calorific value – thereby resulting in reduced availability of higher-grade export material, participants said.

As a result – and coupled with healthy regional import demand – the Global Coal Newcastle index averaged USD 114.22/t last month, up by 18% from the same month last year.

But year-to-date loadings were still a marginal 0.6% higher than in January-September 2017, at 80.6m tonnes.

Australia is the world’s second-largest thermal coal exporter after Indonesia.

Source: MONTEL