I have never seen the price of steaming coal this high before - especially when you consider it was on the nose and had limited shelf life only 12 months ago.
Coal has always had highs and lows - it was always like a Syne Wave - as an investor you were always wary of the downturn - it’s history is working against it.
What has happened now is unprecedented - brought by Ukrainian but primarily because transitioning to renewables is not working and the fall back was always going to be gas which is now in short supply and very expensive
So where does the future lie - it depends a lot on gas and what production of gas looks like - Qatar cannot produce any more and is committed to Asia, - Australia is in the dilemma it has to look after domestic supply and no new gas fields are coming online, and USA is using up all its reserves for the extreme winter it is experiencing
Russia is limiting gas supply to Europe so old coal fired plants are coming out of retirement, but a lot of the coal mines have closed - Germany pensioned off all its coalminers - so high prices are being sought for all short term contracts - long term are not far behind
It my view prices for gas and coal will stay high until renewables become reliable in all conditions which looks to be a while yet - Japan is looking to start up more of its closed nuclear plants and so is Germany and France however they are near their shelf life and maintenance is massively expensive - so I am happy to stay with coal - the best most profitable company is Glencore but I’m happy with WHC
WHC Price at posting:
$9.42 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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