Perth (Platts)--4Dec2012/414 am EST/914 GMT

Coal shipments from Australia's Newcastle port surged 55% to 2.79 million in the seven days to Monday despite a train derailment on a connecting rail line, data released by Newcastle Port Corp. showed Tuesday.

Maintenance on the same track in mid-November had depressed coal shipments from the port to 1.79 million mt in the week ended November 26, NPC in an earlier report.

Thirty-three ships berthed at Newcastle during the port's latest seven-day reporting period, up from 20 the preceding week, reflecting the upturn in coal exports from the port.

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A Pacific National-operated coal train derailed on a bridge on the upper branch of the Hunter Valley railway, near Boggabri in the Gunnedah coal field, last Wednesday, and the track's operator began repairing the rails Monday after the last wagon was removed from the site, Australian Rail Track Corporation said in a statement. The damaged section of track remains closed.

Major regional producer Whitehaven Coal said in a statement Tuesday that it had been notified by ARTC that it would take up to two weeks to complete the repairs.

In the meantime, Whitehaven said it was mulling alternative transport options such as trucking to minimize the impact on its coal shipments.

A total of 10.8 million mt of coal was shipped by Newcastle's three export coal terminals in November, according to NPC data.

The two Port Waratah Coal Services terminals at Newcastle port shipped 7.8 million mt of coal in the month, missing their monthly target by 420,000 mt, the Hunter Valley Coal Chain Coordinator said in a report Sunday.

The balance of shipments, around 3 million mt, would have come from the Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group terminal, which is moving into its second expansion phase that will extend its shipping capacity to 66 million mt/year by late 2013.

PWCS VESSEL QUEUE SHOWS SIGNS OF RECOVERY

The vessel queue for the PWCS terminals is starting to recover after shrinking to as few as four ships in mid-November, with 23 waiting to load coal at PWCS terminals Monday, according to HVCCC's website.

The number of ships in the queue is expected to hit 30 in the next week, then stabilize at 25-30 by the end of December, HVCCC said.

"The PWCS queue is estimated to be around 27 [ships] at the end of December," HVCCC said in its report.

Coal producers that use the PWCS facility are forecasting a strong export performance of 10.2 million mt for December, up from 7.8 million mt in November, the HVCCC report said.

NCIG does not provide vessel queuing data for its terminal. Traders say vessel waiting times at the facility are currently quite low as it has 4.4 million mt of stockpile capacity for coal exports.

In contrast, the PWCS facilities have a more limited stockpile capacity of about 2 million mt, so ships have to queue while cargoes are assembled at mine sites and transported to port, traders said.

Another measure of demand for coal exports is provided by Newcastle Port Corp., which counts the number of ships steaming towards the port's three coal terminals with a notified arrival time.

Fifty ships held a notified arrival slot for Newcastle port on Monday, meaning they were sailing towards the port and had been allocated a berthing spot within the next seven days. A week earlier on November 26, there were 67 ships sailing towards Newcastle port with arrival slots.

--Mike Cooper, michael_cooper@platts.com --Edited by Wendy Wells, wendy_wells@platts.com

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