Newcastle port ship waiting time down to two days
Seaborne exports of coal from Newcastle port were 2.78 million mt in the seven-day period to 7 am Sydney time Monday, (20:00 GMT Sunday), and were roughly the same as the seven days ended October 30 when 2.76 million mt was shipped to customers, said Newcastle Port Corp. in its latest coal shipments report.
The 28 ships that sailed into Newcastle in the seven-day reporting period had waited an average of two days outside the port, the lowest waiting time since May when ships had waited only one day offshore before being allocated a vessel berth, according to port authority data.
Seventeen ships called at Port Waratah Coal Services' Kooragang terminal last week, and another five vessels berthed at the company's Carrington coal terminal, said the Hunter Valley Coal Chain Coordinator in a report, Sunday.
PWCS' terminals are used by coal producers including, Rio Tinto, Xstrata and Centennial Coal.
There was no mention in the HVCCC report of the number of ships that loaded coal at the Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group terminal which is operated by a consortium of five coal companies including, BHP Billiton, Centennial Coal, Peabody Energy, Whitehaven Coal and Yancoal Australia.
But, it can be inferred by subtracting PWCS vessel arrival data from Newcastle port data, that six ships entered the NCIG terminal last week, and loaded 780,000 mt of export coal.
In the week to Sunday, the PWCS terminals loaded 2 million mt of coal exports on to arriving ships, said HVCCC in its latest weekly operating report for the Newcastle coal chain.
Throughput for PWCS was 256,000 mt short of the planned export target for last week at 2.29 million mt, and coal stocks at its two Newcastle terminals finished Sunday at 1.26 million mt, said HVCCC in its report.
Nearly nine in ten of the cargoes shipped from Newcastle port is thermal coal and the rest is coking coal, according to PWCS data.
SIX SHIPS
Coal producers in New South Wales delivered 2.8 million mt of coal exports to Newcastle port by rail in the week to Sunday, compared with the target for the week of 3 million mt.
The Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group terminal exceeded its in-bound target for coal, with an extra 236,000 mt railed to the terminal last week, while the PWCS terminals received 445,000 mt less coal exports than expected in the same period, said the HVCCC report.
November coal shipments from the two PWCS coal terminals are expected to be 8.3 million mt, as the main railway system for the Hunter Valley coal chain is due to close for maintenance in mid-November, said the coal chain coordinator's report.
PWCS shipments are seen to recover to 10.2 million mt in December, said HVCCC in its report.
Numbers of ships waiting to load coal at the PWCS coal terminals are expected to increase to 14 vessels by the end of November, and there were only six ships in the PWCS vessel queue on Monday, said the website of HVCCC.
"The numbers of ships in the queue at Newcastle is very low," said a trader.