Abbot Point coal berth closes for maintenance

One berth at the Abbot Point coal terminal in Queensland, Australia halted ship loading over the weekend for unplanned maintenance that will keep it closed until 23 January.

"There is a requirement to perform unplanned maintenance on Ship Loader 2 at Abbot Point Terminal and as such Berth 2 is currently closed. The maintenance is expected to be completed mid this week," Abbot Point said. "There is no impact to trade with Berth 1 remaining operational as normal."

Customers have not received any updates on the status of their shipments. A Japanese steel producer has one coal shipment that is due to load soon at Abbot Point, but so far has not received any information on potential delays to the shipment after reaching out to its supplier.

"But what we do know now is that shipments have been suspended temporarily and there is to be no loading at present," the Japanese steel producer said.

Coal buyers are not too concerned because the duration of the outage is scheduled to be less than a week and overall coal supply is stabilising. Abbot Point is also not a major coal loading port.

Vessel queues at the main coking coal loading port of Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal (DBCT) have eased to 20-30, down from queues of 40-50 vessels in December. Drier-than-normal weather is forecast for eastern Australia through April.

The Argus assessment for premium hard low-vol coking coal on a fob Australia basis has fallen by 16.6pc from a peak of $230/t fob Australia on 14 December to $191.75/t at the end of last week.