Singapore (Platts)--18Feb2013/820 am EST/1320 GMT

Disruption from a two-day strike by Pacific National rail workers in early February continued to filter through the Newcastle supply chain for coal exports last week, as shipments from the east Australian port slumped 38.5% to 1.82 million mt in the seven-day period ended Monday, said Newcastle Port Corp in a report.

Total shipments from Newcastle's three coal terminals last week were the lowest since a four-day planned outage of the port's railway network for maintenance in the week ended November 26, or 12 weeks ago, when the port shipped only 1.79 million mt.

Pacific National coal trains in New South Wales ground to a halt over a 48-hour period from mid-day February 8 to mid-day February 10, on industrial action by workers in the company's coal haulage unit which moves coal for several dozen mines in the Australian state.

Over February 4-11, Newcastle port's three coal terminals shipped 2.96 million mt after 32 ships called at the port that week, said NPC in a coal exports report.

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Port Waratah's two coal shipment facilities at Newcastle port appeared to have accounted for almost all of Newcastle port's 1.82 million mt of coal exports last week, according to a report from the Hunter Valley Coal Chain Coordinator, Sunday.

The PWCS terminals loaded 1.8 million mt of coal exports on to 19 ships in the seven-day period to Sunday, compared with 2.31 million mt on 27 ships over February 4-10, said HVCCC.

Stocks of coal exports available for loading at the two PWCS terminals had recovered to 939,000 mt on Sunday, after slumping to 635,000 mt a week earlier, following the restart of Pacific National coal train services to the facilities on February 10.

Figures for coal shipments from the Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group terminal at Newcastle port were not published in HVCCC's report, and the terminal does not routinely put such information into the public domain.

A total of 2.72 million mt of coal exports were railed to Newcastle's three coal terminals -- both PWCS' two facilities and the Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group facility -- in the seven day period to Sunday, said HVCCC's latest operating report.

The volume of cargoes assembled in the Hunter Valley coal chain which serves 40 mines that deliver to Newcastle port was only 91,000 mt below the coal chain coordinator's declared throughput target for the week period, said HVCCC in its report.

"Member [cargo] losses finished the week at 6.3% compared to the declared target of 14.1%," said the HVCCC in its latest report.

In the February 10-ended week which included the two-day rail strike, 2.40 million mt of coal exports were delivered by train to Newcastle port, said HVCCC.

The number of ships waiting to load coal at the PWCS terminals at Newcastle port stood at 12 vessels on Sunday, which was down from 15 ships waiting for cargo a week earlier on February 10.

The HVCCC forecast that the number of ships queuing for cargoes at the PWCS terminals at Newcastle was expected to rise through February to 23 ships by the end of March.

"February's [vessel] nominations for PWCS are currently 8.1 million mt. Based on current terminal demand, the queue at PWCS is estimated to be 18 [ships] at the end of February," said the coal chain coordinator in its performance report, Sunday.

--Mike Cooper, michael_cooper@platts.com
--Edited by Geetha Narayanasamy, geetha_narayanasamy@platts.com

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