Tuesday, April 12,
Export-coal prices at South Africa’s Richards Bay terminal, the continent’s biggest facility for the fuel, rose the most in more than two months on speculation Japanese power generators were buying the fuel..*
Prices climbed 3.3 percent to $124.74 a metric ton on average last week, according to Petersfield, England-based researcher IHS McCloskey. The gain was the biggest since the week ended Feb. 4.
Japan faces the prospect of electricity shortages after an earthquake and tsunami on March 11 cut national power-generating capacity by 8 percent. The disaster crippled the Fukushima Dai- Ichi nuclear plant. Japan will have to compensate for lost nuclear power with other sources such as natural gas and coal.
Japanese coal imports in February were 8.9 percent lower than in December, according to figures from the country’s finance ministry.
Richards Bay Coal Terminal exported about 5 percent less coal in March than a year earlier as derailments hindered shipments to the port. Shipments fell to 5.36 million tons from 5.66 million tons in March 2010, the terminal, located on South Africa’s eastern coast, said in a report on April 6.
Source: Bloomberg
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