Peabody eyes 16-17m tonnes of met coal sales in 2014

Coal miner Peabody Energy is targeting to sell 16-17 million tonnes of metallurgical coal from its Australian operations in 2014, the USA-headquartered company said late last week.

Paragraph entered by Atlantic migration, in order for SteelFirst articles to display correctly on Metal Bulletin.

It would be slightly up from its 2013 met coal sales of 15.9 million tonnes.

“Seaborne metallurgical coal supply growth is expected to moderate in 2014, as most projects that were started in a higher-priced environment are completed and industry investment is dramatically reduced

“US metallurgical coal exports have declined by an estimated 12% through March, and Australia export growth is expected to slow as the year progresses,” Peabody said.

The miner sold 3.2 million tonnes of metallurgical coal during the first quarter of this year, down from 3.6 million tonnes recorded for the corresponding period in 2013.

Peabody expects ongoing urbanisation and industrialisation in China and India to lead to a 10-15% growth in seaborne metallurgical coal demand from 2013 to 2016.