The operator of two coal terminals at Newcastle, Port Waratah Coal Services confirmed the cuts Tuesday, though it was unable to go into detail about the size of the reduction in coal exports for reasons of confidentiality it said. "Producers have come back accepting voluntary cuts, and PWCS is
satisfied that the reduced [vessel] nominations will be significant in terms of assisting to reduce the vessel queue," said a PWCS spokesman.
PWCS had announced in a September 3 statement that it would offer its coal producer customers a "one-off opportunity to make voluntary allocation reductions up until [the end of] September 2010" in order to take the pressure off the vessel queue at its two Newcastle coal terminals.
The coal terminals operator said at the time it had been "receiving less coal than it can load on a month-by-month basis, resulting in unacceptably long vessel queues and high demurrage costs for the industry." The number of ships queuing off Newcastle port had fallen slightly to 12 vessels on Monday, down from 18 ships a week earlier on Monday, September 6. However, there was roughly the same number of ships in transit to the port at 55 at the start of this week, compared to 53 at the start of last week.
For the past seven weeks, vessels arriving at Newcastle have had to wait an average of 14 days offshore the port before being allocated a loading berth.
An analysis of Newcastle port statistics for the period September 1 to 13 would apparently show that the voluntary cut to export allocations has yet to take effect.
Newcastle port shipped 1.98 million mt of coal in 27 vessels in the week to 7 am AEST Monday, September 13, which was almost the same volume as the preceding week to September 6 when it had exported 2 million mt in 25 ships, according to figures posted by NPC on its website Tuesday.
A report on Sunday from the Hunter Valley coal chain coordinator estimated PWCS' monthly ship-loading at 8.3 million mt for the month of September and 8.5 million mt for October. NPC had forecast that Newcastle's coal exports would reach 10 million mt in September.
In the month-to-date period to Monday Newcastle port, including PWCS' and NCIG's coal terminals, had shipped 3.5 million mt of coal exports.
Volatility has increased in the over-the-counter market for screen-traded Newcastle cargoes in the past few days. An October cargo of 65,000 mt traded at $98.50/mt FOB Newcastle on Friday followed by a 25,000 mt parcel for November delivery at $93.25/mt FOB, Monday on globalCOAL.
China Chemical Weekly: http://news.chemnet.com/en/detail-1411716.html
