on the issue of what commonalities met coal and thermal coal...

on the issue of what commonalities met coal and thermal coal face - i would say there are two key issues to provide pricing support in the medium term.

1. both are supply constrained under current circumstances - over the past 30yrs i have been in the industry is see it getting more difficult to gain finance and environmental approvals for new mines and existing mines over time get depleted or can increase in production cost with the best coal taken first etc therefore when demand increases there will not be as much supply side response as there was historically.

2. the teir 1 and 2 assets (of both met and thermal from a quality and position on the cost curve perspective) are now in the hands of more disciplined longer term players who dont want to depress prices by oversupplying the market. There will only invest in expanded capacity if there is a high confidence return on investment.

Note that there is always low quality thermal coal available but from an australian coal company investor perspective thats not the end of the market that Australian coal supplies.