Newcastle Coal Exports Fall 12%; Ship Queue Lengthens at Australian Port

Coal shipments from Australia’s Newcastle, the world’s biggest export port for the power-station fuel, fell by 11.5 percent last week while the queue of vessels waiting to load lengthened.

The volume exported in the week ended 7 a.m. local time yesterday dropped to 1.66 million metric tons from 1.88 million tons in the preceding period, Newcastle Port Corp. said on its website today.

Rio Tinto Group, Xstrata Plc and BHP Billiton Ltd. are among mining companies that ship the fuel from the harbor, which has three export terminals. Sixteen vessels were outside the port, up from 14 a week earlier and coal ships waited to load for an average of 14.25 days, up from 13.13, the report said.

Power-station coal prices at Newcastle, an Asian benchmark, rose 3.7 percent, according to the globalCOAL NEWC Index. Prices climbed to $91.03 a ton in the week ended Aug. 27 from $87.79 in the previous period, gaining for the second week.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Sharples in Melbourne at bsharples@bloomberg.net.

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