ISLAMABAD: The coal prices, already down 52 percent since 2011, are forecast to keep falling.
The rout shows that exporters’ OPEC-like tactics of trying to squeeze out high-cost producers have been frustrated by the rising dollar. A 19 percent jump since July in the Intercontinental Exchange’s dollar index, which tracks the greenback against 10 major peers, has helped companies that extract the power-plant fuel whose costs are measured in local currencies, Bloomberg reported. The approach is comparable to that of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the 12-member group that agreed in November to keep output unchanged even as a 49 percent slump in crude in the second half tested the ability of U.S. drillers to keep pumping.
