Bloomberg reported that coal shipments from Australia’s Newcastle port, the world’s biggest export harbor for the fuel, fell by 15% last week while the number of vessels waiting to load rose.

Newcastle Port Corp said that the volume exported in the week ended 7 AM on June 22nd 2009 decreased to 1.52 million tonnes from 1.8 million tonnes a week earlier. A total of 39 ships, waiting to load 3.1 million tonnes of coal, were outside the harbor.

Newcastle Port said that coal ships queued for an average 13.4 days to load up from 11.1 days a week earlier. The waiting time compared with 0.4 days for general cargo vessels.

It said that a total of 19 vessels carrying coal left Newcastle in the week ended June 20. It added that eleven ships were bound for Japan, five for Korea, two for China and one for Mexico.

(Sourced from Bloomberg.net)