The company delivered a less than 1 per cent increase in production to 6.8 million tonnes, compared with the December quarter.

While Chinese export prices were higher compared with those in the United States, they were dampened by the impact of the Lunar new year.

This pushed Coronado’s quarterly sales down by 10.5 per cent to 4.4 million tonnes.

“China’s ban on Australian imports continues to distort the global metallurgical coal market with higher CFR (cost and freight) China prices drawing in additional spot supply from (the United States), Canada, Russia and Mongolia replacing Australian imports,” Coronado chief executive Gerry Spindler said.

“The timing of any change to the Australian coal ban remains uncertain, with Australian exports continuing to rebalance into more distant Atlantic basin markets.

“The impact on Coronado from a volume perspective is minimal. Our Australian operations do not have term volume contracts with Chinese counterparts and only sell into this market sporadically.”

While it felt a limited impact of the Chinese coal ban, Spindler revealed that the company’s Curragh operations in Queensland had been hit by a breakdown of the bucket wheel reclaimer.

The impact lasted for three weeks as the breakdown limited the company’s ability to stockpile and rail coal.

Coronado also suffered an impact from the wet weather and reported a 10 per cent loss in production despite deploying additional fleets at Curragh.

The company is determined to keep its production and cost guidances for the 2021 fiscal year at 18-19 million tonnes and $57-59 a tonne, respectively.