Latest sales figures from Macarthur Coal and Centennial Coal point to a divergence between the markets for coking coal and thermal coal.
Demand for thermal coal - produced by Centennial - has held up much more strongly than that for coking coal - Macarthur's main product.
Centennial reported even stronger export sales in the December quarter than for the September quarter, seemingly bucking the trend. The miner has been trying to increase its proportion of export sales, which attract higher prices than domestic sales, even if the export price halves to about $US75 a tonne, as many analysts expect.
In total, Centennial sold 3.9 million tonnes in the December quarter. Of that, 1.1 million tonnes were exports.
Analysts suggest said thermal coal is a much safer bet in the present market.
Centennial did report a big fall in the price of semi-soft coking coal and will close its Newstan mine earlier than expected while slow-working its Awaba East project.
Last year many thermal coal producers maximised semi-soft coal production to take advantage of a big price difference between the products. Falling demand for semi-soft coal and PCI coal in recent weeks has led to those products being placed in the thermal coal market, which has lowered the spot price of thermal coal.
Macarthur Coal, which produces mostly PCI, said 22 per cent of its sales in the December quarter had been of thermal coal because of lower demand for PCI.
Last month the Queensland miner lowered its annual sales forecast to 3.9 million tonnes from 5 million tonnes.
"The sales mix will also change as thermal coal sales increase and low-volatile PCI coal sales reduce," the miner said.
Macarthur maintained its profit forecast of $75 million to $125 million, including up to $48 million for negative hedge accounting adjustments.
It said lower shipments would continue this quarter, and noted demand from the Atlantic region - home to its largest customer, ArcelorMittal - had been hit harder than other regions due to a 30 per cent cut in steel output.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
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