Perth (Platts)--7Feb2013/523 am EST/1023 GMT

Coal shipments from Newcastle port in eastern Australia sank to a 10-week low of 2.41 million mt in the seven-day period ended Monday, down 10.7% from 2.7 million mt in the week to January 28, Newcastle Port Corp. said in a report released earlier this week.

A combination of factors was responsible for the drop, including wet weather and lower demand for physical coal cargoes, a spokesman for the Hunter Valley Coal Chain Coordinator said Thursday.

"Rain was partially the cause, and there was plant maintenance outage and a slight dip in demand which worked to push exports down," he said. The HVCCC coordinates the flow of coal exports through Newcastle port.

Newcastle port's coal exports touched a low of 1.8 million mt in the week of November 17-26 during maintenance shutdown of the rail system that carries coal to the port for export.

Twenty-four ships entered Newcastle port to load coal in the week to Monday, which was down from 30 ships in the preceding week ended January 28.

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Ships waited an average of six days to enter and berth at Newcastle's coal terminals last week, NPC said in its report.

PWCS TERMINALS EXPORTS SLIP

Shipments from Port Waratah's two coal terminals at Newcastle fell 21% week on week to 1.77 million mt in the week ended Sunday, from 2.24 million mt in the preceding week ended January 27, HVCCC said in a report issued Sunday.

Twenty-one ships sailed from PWCS' Carrington and Kooragang coal terminals in the week to Sunday, compared with 25 in the week earlier.

Coal producers informed HVCCC that they expect demand for exports at the PWCS terminals to be 8 million mt in March, which is around the level of expected demand in February of 7.9 million mt, HVCCC said in its report.

"Based on current terminal demand, the queue at PWCS is estimated to be 15 at the end of February," HVCCC said in its latest operating report for last week.

There were 17 ships queuing to berth at the PWCS terminals on January 27, and the number of ships waiting to load coal was also 17 on Wednesday, HVCCC added.

Data for coal exports from a third coal terminal at Newcastle operated by the Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group consortium of five coal companies was not included in HVCCC's reports.

According to Platts' calculations the NCIG terminal exported about 640,000 mt of coal exports last week, while its shipment capacity is 1 million mt/week.

--Mike Cooper, michael_cooper@platts.com
--Edited by E Shailaja Nair, shailaja_nair@platts.com

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