Our global coal review article in the August issue comments on the buoyant metallurgical coal market. New World Resources (NWR), Central Europe’s leading hard coal and coke producer, has reached agreements with its customers for coking coal and coke sales for the third calendar quarter of 2010 that underline this strongly. Quarterly priced coking coal, which represents 20% of the total expected sales volume for 2010, amounts to approximately 300,000 t for delivery in the third calendar quarter of 2010 and comprises mostly semi-soft coking coal. The average price agreed for these deliveries was EUR158/t, 17% higher than the average price for the second calendar quarter of 2010.
The average price agreed for coke sales during the third calendar quarter of 2010 was EUR362/t, an increase of 42% compared to second calendar quarter prices and 143% higher than the 2009 average price. The expected sales volume for the period is approximately 250,000 t.
80% of NWR’s coking coal in terms of tonnage is sold on a Japanese Fiscal Year (JFY) basis, all coke is sold on a quarterly basis and all thermal coal prices are agreed for the calendar year. The price for JFY 2010 coking coal sales and thermal coal prices for the calendar year 2010 remain unchanged at an average of EUR163/t and EUR65/t, respectively.
“The coking coal and coke prices we have agreed for the third calendar quarter of 2010 are encouraging and are evidence of the continued solid demand for our products this year,” commented Mike Salamon, Executive Chairman of NWR’s Board. “We are happy with our current sales structure, thanks to our decision to settle 80% of our coking coal sales volumes for JFY 2010. However, given the continued uncertainty regarding the prospects for the steel industry, we remain cautious about predicting the outcome of future pricing negotiations as they will be driven by the market dynamics at the time.”
During calendar year 2010, NWR expects to sell externally a total of approximately 5.5 Mt of coking coal, 5 Mt of thermal coal and 1.1 Mt of coke. Production targets for calendar year 2010 remain unchanged at 11.5 Mt of coal and 1 Mt of coke.
