South Africa’s Richards Bay spot thermal coal prices rose up off recent lows during the same period.

The globalCOAL RB index lifted 5.38% last week to $US58.38, while the globalCOAL DES ARA index, considered to be South African spot thermal coal prices plus freight, moved a mere 43c higher to $US60.10.

While Japanese utility Chubu Electric recently settled thermal coal import contracts with Xstrata Coal and Rio Tinto at $US70-72/tonne, Macquarie analysts noted possible pressure ahead in a commodities report.

“Tohoku, the other major ‘benchmark’ setting Japanese power utility, has not yet agreed to the price,” Macquarie analysts said.

“Given further moves down in the spot price, there is some risk that Tohoku may negotiate lower prices than the reported settlement with Chubu – that the average realised price across Japanese contracts will be lower than the settlement reached with Chubu.”

In the meantime the analysts said the $US70/t level remained the best Japanese reference price to date.