Mining News Agency -Exports of coal from the Port of Gladstone in Queensland, Australia, ended 2017 on a high, registering the strongest monthly exports for the year in December, Gladstone Ports Corporation data showed.
Mining News - It shipped 6.31 million mt of coal in December, down 11% year on year and up 17% month on month, the GPC data showed. The port’s exports typically comprise around 70% of metallurgical coal and 30% of thermal coal.
Data showed that total exports from the port for full-year 2017 was 68.29 million tonne, down 2% year on year. It’s the lowest yearly total since 2013, when 62.74 million tonne was exported.
Coal exports from the Port of Gladstone come via the RG Tanna terminal, which has a nameplate capacity of 60 million tonne per year, and from the Wiggins Island terminal, which can handle 8 million tonne per year.
The port had been shipping coal of around 4.5 million tonne per year from Barney Point until the terminal ceased operations in May 2016.
The Department of Industry, Innovation and Science said earlier this week in its Resources and Energy Quarterly that “Australian metallurgical coal production is estimated to have declined modestly in 2017, largely as a result of the impact of Cyclone Debbie in the last days of March.”
It estimated that total Australian metallurgical coal export volumes declined by 11 million to 12 million tonne, or 5% to 6%, in 2017, to 177 million tonne.
The risk of weather impact on 2018 exports has also recently been heightened, following meteorologists declaration late 2017 of a La Nina weather event, the government department said in the report.
It added that “However, sea surface temperature patterns in the Indian Ocean and closer to Australia are not typical of a La Nina event, suggesting that it will be weaker than the strong La Nina episode of 2012, and thus there will be a reduced likelihood of widespread above-average summer rainfall.”