Spot steam coal prices for South Africa & Australia have corrected further in the first week of May to reach as low as $97-98/MT.
Australia's FOB price for Newcastle stands at $ 98.65/MT i.e. down by $ 1.30/MT. Whereas, FOB price for South Africa's Richards Bay stands at $ 97.37 i.e down by $ 2.11/MT.
South Africa has exported
5.17 million tonnes of coal from the Richards Bay Coal Terminal in April, i.e. down
from 6.24 million tonnes the previous month, showed data.
According to experts, “There is an oversupply of coal in
Europe, China and India. The domestic coal market in U.S is very
depressed, and shale gas is taking an increasing market share from coal. As a
result, U.S. coal is going to India, China and Europe”.
The South African producers have been waiting & hoping for
the prices to recover but prices have been declining since Feb 2012 and it has
dropped by around 8%.
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