Whitehaven sees strong coking and thermal coal demand

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

31 Aug 2010

Australian producer Whitehaven Coal expects strong demand for coking and thermal coal during the next 10 months but it warns the country's rail bottlenecks will constrain supply. It expects saleable coal production to increase by about 50% to about 6 million tonne per year in the current financial year to June 30th 2011 compared with the 2009 to 2010 financial year.
Whitehaven said that it has committed sales of about 7 million tonne per year in the financial year to June 30th 2012 more than 8 million tonne in financial year 2012 to 2013 and over 9.5 million tonne per year in 2013 to 2014.
Whitehaven has legacy contracts of 5.38 million tonne over the next 2 years with an average price of USD 68.35 per tonne. It has another 510,000 tonne of coking coal priced at an average of USD 142.12 per tonne over the same period. Forward thermal coal prices remain strong at USD 96 per tonne for next year, USD 100 per tonne for 2012 and USD 103 per tonne for 2013. It expects quarterly prices to ease as spot prices are below the June quarter's contract prices.
It expects to have capacity of around 2.6 million tonne per year at the 30 million tonne per year third coal terminal at Newcastle in the current financial year. It owns an 11% stake in the terminal that started operations this year. It also expects to have 3.6 million tonne per year capacity this financial year at Newcastle's two coal terminals operated by Port Waratah Coal Services.
Whitehaven said in announcing its results for the financial year ending June 30th 2010 that strong fundamental growth in demand for both metallurgical and thermal coal remains and supply continues to be constrained by infrastructure and regulatory issues. Profit fell 53% to AUD 114.9 million from a year earlier because of lower coal prices. Revenue fell 16.9% to AUD 406.81 million from a year earlier. Revenue net of purchased coal and excluding New South Wales state government royalties dropped 8% to AUD 328.2 million.

Source: Argus Media