* No fresh trades reported
* May ARA bids fall by $1/T
LONDON, March 21 (Reuters) – Prices of prompt physical coal
were largely unchanged for the third day running due to a lack
of clear direction and despite a rise in oil prices.
Prices for certain months fell by 25 cents to $1.00 but
others rose slightly after a day of extremely illiquid trade.
Oil rose above $124 a barrel on Wednesday on a surprise drop
in U.S. inventories and tension over Iran.
Bids and offers were close enough to trade but buyers and
sellers were haggling over cents and showed little appetite to
do business, traders said.
Coal swaps opened weaker but had recovered most of their
losses by the end of the afternoon. The fall in swaps encouraged
market participants to look at index-linked deals rather than
fixed-price but no indexed or fixed price trades were reported.
“There’s been real apathy today – the same factors are there
which have been around for weeks, oversupply, poor demand and
nothing much from China,” one trader said.
Continued…
