The globalCOAL NEWC index gained 6.42%, closing at $US76.23 per tonne for the week ending Friday.
South Africa’s Richards Bay picked up 5.59% to $64.08/t for the week while the globalCOAL DES ARA index, considered to be South African spot thermal coal prices plus freight, gained 6.01% to $69.98/t.
Meanwhile, Newcastle’s port is facing more issues with its offshore queue.
In a commodities report, Macquarie Research said the port planned to cut September shipping quotas by 1 million tonnes in an attempt to reduce a shipping queue of around 50 vessels.
Macquarie noted that first-half shipments from the port came to 43.5Mt, including 36.8Mt of thermal coal, a 3.3% year-on-year gain, while coking coal exports from Newcastle accounted for 6.7Mt, a 23% gain.
In its performance report for last week, Hunter Valley Coal Chain Logistics Team forecast 7.4Mt of coal from producers this month, but demand nominations are already at 7.9Mt.
HVCCLT said the vessel queue was expected to be 37 at the end of July based on these nominations.
With 44 ships in the offshore queue on Friday, HVCCLT said 18 of these had coal availability issues and were classed as “dead”
Indicating that demand is steadily outpacing supply, the week before HVCCLT said there were 43 vessels in the offshore queue and 15 were classed as dead due to coal availability issues.
