Market overview from globalCoal for February 6

The week started as last week finished, with limited activity seen on both physical and paper markets. Paper markets initially opened higher although quickly gave up these gains to fall below last week's closing levels. With the Euro under further pressure with the risk of a Greek default again looming and a well offered DES ARA physical market API#2 prices led the way lower with API#4 and NEWC following. Not even a rising oil market could help the slide as many players saw the weaker physical market as a stronger factor. Brent ended the day up nearly $1/bbl at ~$115.50/bbl. API#2 was lower by ~$1 whilst the API#4 and NEWC both lost circa $0.60 on the CAL13 product.

Good weather conditions over the weekends till weren't quite enough to get some Hunter Valley miners back up and running, after a week of torrential rain. Most estimates are around 1 million tonnes of production time lost last week. Vessel queues remain high, with more than 30 vessels in the queue still waiting for coal. Most expect the recent round of Korean tenders to be well offered, but at higher levels as rain in both Indonesia and Australia will dampen supply in the coming months.