The rail shutdown from July 14-18 will bring a halt to the Goonyella rail system but DBCT will still load ships until Friday morning and then restart on Tuesday, according to Inchcape Shipping Services.

 

ISS said HPCT will continue to load ships through Berth No1 across the shutdown.

 

The shipping company also noted that DBCT’s Berth No2 is closed for maintenance from July 7-28, while Berth No 1 will close for the same reason from August 3-28.

 

The terminal’s Berth No4 is scheduled to close from August 29 to September 10 while Berth No3 will close from September 13-26.

 

For HPCT, ISS said Berth No2 is undergoing maintenance up to August 10 while shiploader maintenance at this berth will be from October 29 to November 4.

 

Rio Tinto Coal Australia responds to leaked ‘draft’ document

 

The Australian recently reported that Rio was concerned about the underperformance of DBCT and feared an allocation system at the terminal might be introduced, potentially hurting the sales targets for Blair Athol and Hail Creek.

 

But a RTCA spokeswoman told ILN the report was based on a leaked internal draft document which was 6-12 months old and forwarded to the newspaper’s coal journalist “somehow”.

 

She said the document was never finalised, never approved and Rio was not standing by the content of the report.

 

Rio also uses Abbot Point and Gladstone for exporting coal in the state.

 

While DBCT is fully contracted for its 85 million tonnes per annum capacity, a DBCT spokesperson told ILN a few weeks ago the rail feeding it was running at 72Mtpa.