Bloomberg reported that prices for coal shipped from South Africa Richards Bay, the continent’s biggest export facility for the fuel posted their first gain in four weeks on speculation that banks are more active in the market.
According to McCloskey Group Ltd export prices advanced USD 1.20 or 1.4% to an average of USD 84.60 per tonne in the week to February 5th. Prices rose last month to the highest since November 2008. The terminal is the biggest source for Europe of coal burned for power and is owned by South Africa’s largest exporters of the fuel including BHP Billiton Ltd, Anglo American Plc and Xstrata Plc.
Mr Mike Newman an analyst at Petersfield, England based researcher McCloskey said “We saw banks involved on both sides for the majority of the deals. They may be hedging coal derivatives and it remains to be seen whether or not the trades were genuine demand.”
According to data coal exports from Richards Bay fell last month to the lowest since September. Outbound shipments were 4.87 million tonnes the least since September 4.16 million tons. The terminal exported 4.12 million tons in January 2009 and 5.55 million tons in December of that year.
At January shipment rate, the terminal will export 58 million tonnes of coal this year. The terminal is scheduled to boost its annual export capacity to 91 million tonnes by the end of this year Q1. Shipments came to 61.14 million tons last year.