* August ARA trades at $87.25/T
* Mixed signals seen from China
LONDON, June 6 (Reuters) – European prompt physical coal
prices slipped by around $1.00 a tonne on Wednesday in quiet
trade.
Many players were still in Bali after the Coaltrans
conference there this week – one of the world’s biggest coal
annual events – and few bids, offers or trades were reported.
“There are a lot of the usual people missing this week but
overall it’s a little softer again and all the news looks
bearish,” one European trader said.
The mood at the Bali conference was bearish among producers,
traders and end-users gathered there against a backdrop of
widespread Chinese price re-negotiations and deferrals and fear
that global demand this year will fall far short of supply
.
Signals from China have been mixed in recent weeks.
Despite the price majeures (coal market parlance for one
counterparty refusing to honour the contracted price), China has
kept buying fresh spot cargoes of imported coal, which remains
at a discount to domestic prices.
And analysts are mostly forecasting another strong year,
perhaps a record year, of Chinese coal imports.
Continued…
