LONDON Nov 7 (Reuters) – South African physical coal prices
eased on Wednesday as coal companies there signed a wage deal
with unions in an effort to avoid a wave of illegal strikes that
have rocked the gold and platinum sectors.
Physical deliveries for December saw a bid-offer range of
$78 at $81.25 per tonne on brokerage GLOBALcoal, slightly below
levels seen at the beginning of the week.
Traders said that the drop in prices was a result of South
Africa’s coal mining wage deal, which saw the Chamber of Mines
agreeing to raise certain entry-level wages by up to 5 percent
and offered one-off payments to higher categories of workers.
The price fall also affected physical deliveries to Europe,
where a contract for delivery in January with destination
Amsterdam/Rotterdam/Antwerp (DES ARA) was traded at $88 a tonne,
down half a dollar on the previous day.
On the financial side, API2 2013 coal swaps remained in a
downward trend that has been in place since the third quarter of
2011.
The contract was trading at $94.40 a tonne on Wednesday
afternoon, up from this month’s low of $92.50, but still alsmost
30 percent below levels seen in Q3 2011.
(Reporting by Henning Gloystein, editing by William Hardy)
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