Saturday, March 14, 2009

Coal Deliveries Slump In Shanxi

Since the recent coal mine accident in Shanxi, a series of maintenance in coal mines has been carried out. As a result, coal production has been affected, and statistics show delivered volume by rail in Shanxi has dropped over 20% to less than 600,000 tonnes.

Statistics also show that thermal coal price at Qinhuangport has remained stable. On March 9th the exit price of high grade mixed coal of Shanxi stayed at CNY 558 per tonne - the same as in last week. Domestic coking coal price has also remained stable. But coal stock at Qinhuangdao port has declined by 11.6% to 6.78 million tonnes.

The accident broke out in Tunlan coal mines has led to a wide range of maintenance, and thus propped up coal price in Shanxi. At present, four highly gassy mines of Shanxi Coking Coal Group with a total 17.6 million tonnes of capacities each year have been pushed into maintenance. In addition, the same kind of highly gassy mines of Shanxi Coal Transportation and Sales Group and Shanxi Coal IMP&EXP Group have also entered production suspension and check. This well justifies the increase in coal prices.

Meanwhile, international coal price continues to goes down. Australia's Newcastle port witnessed coal price declining by USD 3.6 per tonne, and then came down to USD 61.7 per tonne on March 6th dipping 5.5% compared with last week.

Source: Steel Guru

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