There is already a 22% difference between the current quarter benchmark free on board price for Australian hard coking coal of $109.5/t compared to the Platts premium Australia HCC spot price of $85/t more than a week ago.

Solid Energy, which made 113 redundancies at its flagship Stockton coking coal mine in New Zealand on Thursday, had also said HCC spot prices had fallen to $83/t.

This is also close to the $82/t spot HCC price listed by Freight Investor Services Shanghai last week.

Various brokers are only just catching up with previous quarterly price falls in the commodity and are yet to register the collapse in spot prices since.

Among these are ANZ, which recently cut is coking coal forecast by 8.5% to $104/t in 2015, and Bernstein which recently lowered its 2015 HCC forecast from $130/t to $105/t.

However, UBS is taking note of the spot market impacts and has also observed that the Australian dollar is playing a role.

“In H1 2015, we are cautious on coking coal, with spot being 28% below our forecast of $113/t for H1 2015,” UBS said in client note yesterday.

“Coking coal prices continue to trade lower reflecting in lack of anticipated cuts from US producers; [the] weaker Australian dollar supporting the Australian producer cost base; as well as China showing signs of pulling back from seaborne coal imports.”