Anglo American’s recent decision to shelve the Peace River mine in Canada brought the total fallout past the 20Mt mark with 1.5Mt of supply going from that move.
According to the data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence, Peabody’s recent downsizing at the Burton mine in Queensland equated to a loss of 1.5 million tonnes per annum of capacity and Vale’s Integra mine closure in New South Wales culled 2.3Mtpa in May.
The biggest falls came from Alabama-based Walter Energy’s moves to idle the Wolverine and Brazion operations in May (3.6Mt) and Mechel North America Bluestone cutbacks in April.
Yet hard coking coal prices are struggling to recover more from the low $US120 per tonne Asian benchmark price struck for two quarters of 2014 so far – prompting speculation that more mine closures will occur globally.
