Perth (Platts)--26Jun2012
Shipments of thermal and coking coal from Australia's Newcastle port were close to record levels in the seven-day period to 7 am Australian Eastern Standard Time Monday, (2100 GMT Sunday) at 3.07 million mt, a rise of 25.5% from the previous week, Newcastle Port Corp. said in an operations report Tuesday.
Thirty-nine ships loaded coal at Newcastle port during the seven-day period, the highest number since Platts started tracking the data in January 2011.
Over June 1-24, Newcastle port's three coal terminals have exported 9.05 million mt of coal, and with one week to go, the port could exceed its previous record for one calendar month. The port shipped a record 11.8 million mt of coal in April this year, according to a May 5 statement on Newcastle Port Corp.'s website.
Port Waratah Coal Services surpassed its weekly target of 2.31 million mt of coal exports from the two coal terminals it operates at Newcastle port, with shipments reaching 2.44 million mt last week, the Hunter Valley Coal Chain Coordinator said in a report Sunday.
"PWCS shiploading for the week was 131,500 mt above the PWCS declared outbound throughput," said the coordinator which oversees the shipment of coal cargoes from Hunter Valley coal mines to Newcastle port.
Stock levels at the two PWCS coal terminals eased slightly to 2 million mt on Monday, according to information on HVCCC's website, after jumping to 2.5 million mt a week ago amid reports of rising congestion at the port.
In its report on Sunday, HVCCC said: "PWCS port stocks have decreased to 2.44 million mt."
HVCCC did not disclose in its report the amount of coal shipped by Newcastle port's third coal terminal -- which is operated by Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group, a consortium of five coal exporters that includes BHP Billiton, Centennial Coal and Yancoal.
While Newcastle's export performance is likely to be applauded by some market participants, others have expressed concern that its increased coal exports is leading to oversupply in the Newcastle thermal coal spot market.
PWCS' VESSEL QUEUE JUMPS TO JUST UNDER 50
More ships joined the vessel queue for PWCS' two coal terminals last week, despite the terminal operator exceeding its target for coal exports for the period.
The number of ships waiting to load coal exports at the PWCS terminals rose to 49 vessels on Monday from 42 a week ago, according to information on HVCCC's website.
This is the highest number of vessels in PWCS' shipping queue since November last year, when it was in the high 40s and followed a period of extensive maintenance to the port's railway for coal exports.
In order to bring down its vessel queue to a more manageable size, PWCS last November called for a voluntary round of cuts to coal exporters' shipment capacity at its terminals which market sources said amounted to about 760,000 mt.
It is possible that PWCS is currently considering another cut to coal exporters' capacity allocations, as the HVCCC expects the PWCS vessel queue to peak this week, and then to fall steadily to about 30 ships by the end of next month.
This is in spite of PWCS planning to ship an extra 1 million mt of coal exports in July, compared with its June target of 9.3 million mt.
"The vessel queue is estimated to be 33 ships at the end of July based on a producer forecast [for vessel arrivals] of 9.9 million mt and shiploading of 10.2 million mt," HVCCC said in its report, without explaining how this would be achieved.
--Mike Cooper,
--Edited by Deepa Vijiyasingam,
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