“The record earnings reflect increased export volumes for most commodities and significantly higher prices for bulk commodities,” ABARE executive director Phillip Glyde said.

Australia is unlikely to break the new record levels of resource export earnings anytime soon, however, with Glyde noting the recent collapse in commodity prices was not captured in the latest Australian Mineral Statistics Report with the majority of the price falls occurring since mid-September.

ABARE said the energy export price index increased by 28% in the September quarter, reflecting increased thermal and metallurgical coal contract prices.

This jump eclipses the 20% gain in the index of export prices of Australian energy and mineral resources as a whole and the 13% spike in prices yielded for metals and related minerals, which ABARE said was driven by higher contract prices for iron ore.

The government agency reported that September quarter export earnings for metallurgical coal were up 53% or $3.5 billion to $9.9 billion, while thermal coal increased 37% to $3.8 billion and iron ore jumped 38% to $9.4 billion.

Other rises included a 34% lift in gold export earnings to $3.8 billion, a 21% hike in liquefied natural gas to $365 million and a 20% gain in aluminium to $1.4 billion.

Notable declines in the three-month period came from nickel which lost 63% or $248 million from the June quarter as the latest export earnings totalled $355 million, while petroleum refinery products lost 17% and uranium fell 13%.

Glyde said production of around two-thirds of the country’s major mineral and energy commodities increased during the three months to September, especially black coal, refined gold and silver along with uranium and diamonds.

On December 15, ABARE will release new forecasts for minerals production, exports and prices as well as the agency’s updated resource sector outlook and accompanying analysis.

Despite commodity price carnage, Australia had a record national surplus of $A2.96 billion for October.