CANBERRA: Coal shipments from Gladstone port to India jumped to 1.68 million mt in September, their highest monthly total recorded to date, and up 27% on 1.32 million mt exported to the south Asian country in August, the Australian port said in an operating report Friday.
Indian buyers have been steadily increasing their offtake of coal exports from Gladstone port in Queensland, and in June they booked 1.67 million mt of coal — the previous high point for exports to the country.
The Queensland port ships thermal and coking coal exports from shippers that include Glencore, Rio Tinto, Idemitsu, Sojitz, Jellinbah, Yancoal and Wesfarmers.
Indian coal buyers, including cement producers, are said have a good appetite for Queensland’s lower ash thermal coal, which has an ash content in the range of 7.5%-15% and is available at Gladstone port. Over January-September, India has been the destination for 11 million mt of Gladstone coal exports, up from 9.98 million mt for the year-ago period.
China’s offtake from Gladstone port, meanwhile, sank to a seven-month low in September at 624,000 mt, a 35% decline on August’s total of 959,000 mt, said the operating report from Gladstone Ports Corporation.
Gladstone’s coal export volumes for China dipped to only 588,000 mt in February, when the country celebrated the Lunar New Year holiday — a traditional low point for coal trading.
For the first nine months of 2015, China has imported 8.6 million mt of coal exports from Gladstone port, down substantially from 13 million mt in the corresponding period last year, showed the port’s shipping data.
Japan was the leading offtake buyer for Gladstone exports last month at 2 million mt, down slightly from its total of 2.22 million mt in August, and in the year-to-date period the country has taken 18 million mt of Gladstone coal exports compared with 16 million mt for the year-ago period.
South Korea was a destination country for 873,000 mt of coal exports shipped from Gladstone in September, up on 750,000 mt in August, and bringing its total for the January-September period to 7.7 million mt, practically the same for the similar 2014 period.
Taiwan’s offtake from Gladstone port in September for coal exports was 311,000 mt compared with 470,000 mt in August, making its January-September total 2.6 million mt against 2.33 million mt for the first nine months of 2014.
Gladstone port’s coal shippers loaded 6 million mt of cargo on to arriving ships last month, down from 7 million mt shipped by the port in August.
Rail deliveries to Gladstone port were slowed this week by a train derailment on the Blackwater railway on Tuesday, and track operator Aurizon said the line would reopen fully on Friday.
