richards bay february coal sales jump 33%

Richards Bay February Coal Sales Jump 33% on Higher Railings

Shipments from Richards Bay Coal Terminal, Africa’s largest export facility for the fuel, rose 33 percent last month as Transnet SOC Ltd. increased rail haulage. Deliveries from the port on South Africa’s north-east coast climbed to 6.1 million metric tons from 4.6 million tons a year earlier, RBCT said today on its website.

“There have been no derailments or any major weather problems,” Xavier Prevost, an analyst at XMP Consulting, said by phone from Pretoria. “Transnet has really improved its performance over the past few months.”

Prices for coal traded through RBCT declined 0.5 percent to average $105.38 a ton in February from a month earlier, and were 11 percent lower than last year, according to HIS McCloskey data on Bloomberg.

“Demand in the international coal market is quite low at the moment,” Prevost said. “Europe is buying very little” and demand from India and China is low, he said. The port, whose owners include BHP Billiton Ltd. and Anglo American Plc (AAL), received 5.2 million tons of coal in the month, and had stocks of 2.8 million tons, according to RBCT, which didn’t give a reason for the increase in February shipments. The terminal has the capacity to export 91 million tons a year.

Source: Bloomberg