London (Platts)--5Feb2013/734 am EST/1234 GMT

An all-time high of 15 million mt worth of coal was traded and cleared in the globalCOAL ICE Newcastle Coal Futures market in January, soaring 90.8% from the previous month and up 65.6% from January 2012, energy exchange ICE Futures Europe and electronic trading platform globalCOAL said late Monday.

According to Platts data, Newcastle prompt-month paper prices ended the month at $95.20/mt on January 31, on par with their starting level of $95.10/mt on January 2.

However, prices had recovered in the last week of January from an intra-month low of $93.15/mt.

Newcastle prices and activity ticked up, particularly at the end of January, on rail issues due to stormy weather and a possible strike by New South Wales coal train drivers at Australian rail freight and port operator Asciano's haulage division Pacific National Coal over a wage dispute.

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Trading sources added that the Newcastle market traditionally firms in the first quarter of the year with upcoming March contract negotiations between Japanese power utilities and Australian producers providing support.

Overall, the total volume of ICE coal futures traded and cleared in January rose 22.3% on the month but was 21.7% lower year-on-year, to 80.7 million mt worth of coal, according to the ICE coal futures monthly report.

The largest portion (69%) of the aggregate volume was made up of ICE Rotterdam Coal Futures, although the European contracts saw the smallest monthly percentage increase compared with the Australian and South African contracts.

A total of 55.9 million mt worth of coal was traded and cleared in the ICE Rotterdam Coal Futures market in January, climbing 9.5% from December, but slipping 44% year-on-year.

The amount of ICE Richards Bay Futures traded and cleared jumped 38.3% from December to 9.8 million mt, although the volume fell 25.2% in relation to January 2012.

Rotterdam prompt-month derivatives started the month at $90.50/mt, flagging $4.45/mt during the month to $86.05/mt by the end of January.

Richards Bay February paper contracts were assessed at $90.75/mt at the beginning of the month, retreating $4.75/mt during January to close at $86/mt on January 31, according to Platts data.

--Jacqueline Holman, jacqueline_holman@platts.com
--Edited by Alisdair Bowles, alisdair_bowles@platts.com

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