Bloomberg reported that Coal shipments from Australia’s Newcastle port fell 16.9% last week while the number of vessels waiting to load increased.

Newcastle Port Corp said the volume exported in the week ended 7AM local time recently dropped to 1.8 million tonnes from 2.1 million tonnes a week earlier.

27 ships, waiting to load 2.7 million tonnes of coal, were outside the harbor up from 26 vessels. It said coal ships queued to load for an average 11.8 days up from 10.6 days a week earlier. The waiting time compared with 0.29 day for general-cargo vessels.

According to the globalCOAL NEWC Index Power-station coal prices at Newcastle port, a benchmark for Asia fell 0.3% to USD 69.72 per tonne in the week ended September 25th. Rio Tinto Group, Xstrata Plc and BHP Billiton Ltd are among mining companies that ship coal through the harbor.

(Sourced from Bloomberg)