"So I was wondering if its the same this time especially if we...

"So I was wondering if its the same this time especially if we dont know if Moranbah North has a fire or just an ignition?"

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Thats the unknown. Grosvenor fire was close to the longwall and that'd be easy to identify. There's some awesome video on this YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/zhnGe2LFYEM

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The thing is, we don't yet know much about Moranbah North other than the inspectorate has shut it down and has advised to seal the working panel so that it can be inertised with nitrogen. From what I read, all the safety systems triggered fire suppression throughout the mine by spreading inert dust everywhere from the portal to the longwall. My guess here is that the ignition took place deeper in the goaf which doesn't have suppression systems, so, they've been pumping nitrogen down some surface holes to flood the goaf and starve any fire of oxygen. AFAIK there's no way to know if there's unobstructed airflow through the goaf other than a 3D survey scan, even then, if the goaf has partially collapsed, there's no way to know if the ignition came from inside the fallen strata. The best way to have confidence of any fire being starved of oxygen is to temporarily seal the entrances to the longwall panel and fill it with nitrogen for a precalculated period. That'd potentially take 2-3 months, similar to what we saw at Grosvenor. My guts says that this is what's gonna occur and they're unlikely to lose the longwall, but, it'll take time to get it cutting again after the full inertisation of the panel.

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Problem for Anglo is that on May 5 Peabody triggered the MAC and gave Anglo 10 days to respond and a further 90 days to get the show back on the road, otgwise the deal is off or price gets negotiated down. This corporate shenanigans is for another thread... butt, enter the inspectorate, their game is safety. The people there are pretty awesome. They give zero fscks about the money and only care about safety. Again, my opinion is that they'll take this opportunity to drive cultural change, because, Anglo is hellish loose and peabody is similar when it comes to safety... they talk the talk, but, they don't have the money to bubble wrap everyone in the same way that bhp does, because, BHP has peak downs and goony pumping the free cash flow with their sweet sweet open cut exposure of the goony middle seam. So, again it's my opinion that the inspectorate is going to take this opportunity to crap all over these mine operators and force them to slow down and change their attitudes at a critical point in their existence, because, it's much harder to steer a big ship when it's off course than it is to point it in the right direction before it starts moving.

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Where does this leave us, well, for one, I love this stuff about coal and I'm grateful I work around it as opposed to being a bell boy, but, mostly what this'll do is that it'll drive mid quality met prices because of the reduction of premium product into the market. Again, my loose understanding of coke ovens is that they need a certain blended average quality around 600 ddpm for one of the most critical coal qualities, fluidity. Moranbah North pumps something like around 4000,but,naturally, this is to high, it's like wanting to drink 10 litres of alcohol, but, only having a bottle of over proof Bundy Rum on hand... so it gets blended down with lower graded met coal, like HCC or SHCC or SSCC, which are sorta like all fancy names for different ranges of ddpm values. What's most valuable in this case is the next lowest coal, HCC, the sort of coals that WHC & CRN are washing and what JAL gonna be mining soon. How much coal does the market need, well, this is where it gets interesting, as it's a blended weight average, to replace Moranbah North 6mtpa of 4000 ddpm coal, we'd need to know what the minimum final spec blend for a coke oven is. Platts gives hints that this is 600 and it might vary for different customers, but, if we assume 600 is the spec, we'd need (4000/600)* 6mtpa replacement tonnes of 600ddpm coal... so where's this extra 40mtpa of HCC gonna come from? Again this assuming that 600ddpm is what the coke ovens need... If it's lower ddpm, then the market needs exponentially more met coal. Am I throwing you a bone here bell boy or what... is this your path to redemption after years of worshipping the false God of climate change? I'm not taking the piss, I'm being kind to you. Good luck mate.

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"You said at the time that this price spike wouldn't last and you were right!"

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You're only ever as good as your last call. That's something I learnt from the great Marcus Padley. It's why I don't like to block or ignore people... because everyone has a contribution to make, even if they're an ignorant prick. There's also a few other masters I'm grateful to have learnt from, Colin Nicholason and Darryl Guppy to name a couple more. I'm no one special, I just love coal and its intersection with financial markets.