Bulker queue builds off coal hubs in Australia

HEAVY rain has affected deliveries of coal to major ports on Australia’s east coast, leading to a build-up of bulkers. 

Lloyd’s List Intelligence data shows that there are 40 bulkers, for a total of 5m dwt, waiting to enter the port of Hay Point as of January 20, while 15 bulk carriers for a total of 1.7m dwt are queueing at Abbot Point.

Of those, 31 are panamaxes, 16 are capesizes and the rest are very large carriers, over 200,000 dwt in size.

Given the inherent delays, spot panamax freight rates are levelling off at the $9,500 per day level on the Baltic Exchange, while capesizes continue to freefall ahead of the Chinese New Year, with rates at the $6,500 per day mark, the lowest in almost four months. 

Floods blocked access to the ports in Queensland, with disruption expected to last several days, according to reports. 

Ship brokerage Braemar noted how floods in 2022 caused Australian exports to decline to their lowest quarterly volumes in several years in the third quarter.

In the first two weeks of January, miners hit a daily export pace of 1.1m tonnes, which was 1.1% above that of the same period last year.

The biggest importer of Australian volumes was Japan, taking 35% of the volumes, followed by India, taking in 16%, South Korea at 14%, and Taiwan at 9%, its data showed. The European Union increased its imports in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions on Russian supplies. Volumes to the EU were 7% of the total.

The country is expecting to increase metallurgical coal exports to 183m tonnes in 2023-24 from 174m tonnes in the previous 12 months, while thermal coal exports are targeted at 203m tonnes from 190m tonnes over the same period, it said in the latest edition of the Resources and Energy quarterly report issued in December.

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