The possibility of placing a coal price cap on coal exports...

The possibility of placing a coal price cap on coal exports makes no financial sense or even commonsense . Firstly, it will have zero impact on energy costs in Oz. Moreover, our international terms of trade would be negatively affected. The government is desperate to reduce our international debt, so makes no sense to cap export prices. Placing a cap on domestic sales would have an impact obviously on Oz energy costs but TER is more or less 100% export, so should be immune. Secondly, a price cap on domestic sales ( for those domestic suppliers) will cause a reduction in state royalties, especially Queensland given their recent huge royalty hikes, hence the Qsld govt wants compensation if this happens, and in theory that royalty hike was meant to offset energy bills for the consumers, so its a zero-sum game up to a point.

By the way, another big crossing pre-market open today, around 5 - 6% of the share registry. Interesting.