Newcastle Exports Fall to 12-week Low

Platts reported that last week, a two-day strike undertaken by Pacific National rail employees earlier this month continued to affect coal shipments from Newcastle’s three coal terminals, bringing them down to their lowest level in 12 weeks.

As quoted in the market news:

Pacific National coal trains in New South Wales ground to a halt over a 48-hour period from mid-day February 8 to mid-day February 10, on industrial action by workers in the company’s coal haulage unit which moves coal for several dozen mines in the Australian state..

Port Waratah’s two coal shipment facilities at Newcastle port appeared to have accounted for almost all of Newcastle port’s 1.82 million mt of coal exports last week, according to a report from the Hunter Valley Coal Chain Coordinator, Sunday.

The PWCS terminals loaded 1.8 million mt of coal exports on to 19 ships in the seven-day period to Sunday, compared with 2.31 million mt on 27 ships over February 4-10, said HVCCC.

Click here to read the full Platts report.