Wesfarmers sees Q3 hard coking coal price fall to $140 fob

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The weighted average price for hard coking coal, semi-hard coking coal and pulverised coal injection (PCI) coal will also decrease by around 15% from the previous quarter, Wesfarmers said on Wednesday July 17.

“The continued trend from steelmakers to lower grade metallurgical coals has affected hard coking coal pricing more significantly than lower grade metallurgical coal,” md Stewart Butel said in the statement.

Last month, BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metals Corp agreed the Q3 benchmark price at $145 per tonne fob Australia.

Curragh produced 2 million tonnes of met coal during the June quarter, up 28.9% from the March quarter but down 15.7% from a year earlier.

The miner’s met coal output for the year ended June 30 totalled 7.38 million tonnes, up 2.3% from the previous year.

“Production during the 2013 financial year was affected by a scheduled shutdown during the Christmas period and significant wet weather, which interrupted rail and port activities, associated with cyclone Oswald,” Wesfarmers said.