While Drummond Coal avoided a strike at its Colombian mines last week, a strike started on Thursday at Glencore’s La Jagua coal mine which exports around 5 million tonnes per annum from the country.

Wet weather is disrupting coal mines in Indonesia with at least one coal producer declaring force majeure on shipments for this month.

Macquarie Research noted that Australian coal exports fell last month with Newcastle shipments responsible for 50% of the decline.

“This trend looks set to continue, with heavy weather in June meaning that, in the month to date, exports from Port Waratah Coal Service ports are running at 87 million tonnes annualised, down 8.3 per cent month-on-month,” Macquarie said.

“This is still better than rates achieved in Q1 but is unlikely to be enough to offset softer exports from Indonesia.”

Macquarie said thermal coal should perform strongly in the near term compared to other commodities “which are either being whipsawed by volatility in financial markets or weakening from recent peaks due to a turn in the steel production cycle”