达尔林普尔湾6月初煤炭出口持上升趋势

【澳大利亚达尔林普尔湾煤炭码头4-5月份处理煤炭出口量超过400万吨。恶劣天气影响过后，本月该码头货运量持续增加。码头负责人上周四表示。】

Australia's Dalrymple Bay coal terminal, which handled coal exports of more than 4 million mt in April and May, after a decline following a record spell of bad weather, is seeing the increased shipping activity continue this month, a terminal official said Thursday. "We are seeing an increase in ships arriving for which coal is available, and hopefully this is a long-term trend and a turning point," Dalrymple Bay coal terminal operations general manager, Greg Smith, said in a telephone interview. "We have quite a lot of coal moving to the terminal. Last week, the terminal took between 22 and 24 coal trains per day. I am not too sure how long this will last, hopefully it will be a long-term situation," he said. At midnight Australian Eastern Standard Time June 8, DBCT had 998,500 mt of coal on its stockpile and available for loading onto ships, according to the website of the Dalrymple Bay coal chain coordinator.

The Queensland coal terminal has been steadily increasing its coal exports since they hit a monthly low of 2.65 million mt in February 2011. They hit 4.46 million in April, slipping slightly to 4.35 million mt in May, according to data posted on the NQBPC website. In the 11-month period ended May 2011, Dalrymple Bay coal terminal has so far exported 50.27 million mt of coal exports, compared with 57.2 million in the corresponding 11-month period to May 31 2010, according to data on the website of the terminal's port authority, North Queensland Bulk Ports Corp. Meanwhile, the terminal's offshore vessel queue has stayed below 20 ships since April and on June 8 DBCT had 18 ships in its vessel queue that were waiting to load coal. The terminal's vessel queue was in the low 40s last December. "The range we need to get the best productivity out of the coal supply chain is 15-20 ships," said Smith commenting on the terminal's optimal vessel queue.

Having enough available coal to load on to arriving ships has been a pressing issue for the coal terminal for the past few months, as heavy rainfall earlier in the year has caused persistent production problems for many Bowen Basin coal miners. "Demand has always been there, but buyers of coal were not prepared to nominate ships for arrival at DBCT while mines were under force majeure," Smith said. "Now that these mines are out of force majeure, what appears to be happening is that the terminal is getting more ships arriving," he said. Approximately 20 coalmines ship their coal exports through Dalrymple Bay coal terminal including, Anglo American Metallurgical Coal, BHP Billiton-Mitsubishi Alliance, Macarthur Coal, Rio Tinto, Peabody Energy and Vale. Most of the Bowen Basin's coal producers are understood to have now lifted their remaining restrictions on coal exports resulting from wet weather.

Anglo American Metallurgical Coal, however, declined to comment Thursday on the operational status of its German Creek coking coal mining complex in central Queensland, in spite of market speculation that it had recently lifted restrictions on its coal exports. BHP Billiton, the operator of nine Bowen Basin coal mines has restricted its operational updates to its quarterly production reports, the last of which on April 20 said: "Force majeure remains in place for the majority of our Bowen Basin products with production, sales and unit costs likely to be impacted, to some extent, for the remainder of the 2011 calendar year." Separately, Dalrymple Bay coal terminal has postponed some of its scheduled maintenance to enable its coal company customers to maximize their coal exports in the lead up to the end of the Australian financial year on June 30. "We have deliberately eased or delayed maintenance to give miners the chance to catch up on throughput, it being the last month of the financial year," Smith said.

来源：Platts