The slide of the Aussie dollar has outweighed the recent 6.4% quarter-on-quarter fall in the premium hard coking coal benchmark which settled at $US109.5 a tonne free on board for this quarter.
“Hard coking coal bench mark prices in Australia have risen from $A125t FOB in April 2014 to more than $A142/t FOB at present, despite recent falls in USA dollar terms to $US109.5/t FOB for the June 2015 quarter,” Cochrane said at Bounty’s general meeting on Thursday.
“Although commodity prices are still low the falling Australian dollar is providing support for the Australian coal sector.”
The chairman also took solace in estimates that growing Indian and Asian metallurgical coal demand could offset the losses due to lower Chinese demand.
Bounty recently started phase two of a farm-in agreement to lift its stake of the indigenous-owned $A500 million project from 5% to 20%.
The shallow coal-based Laura Basin project, about 150km north of Cairns, is targeting 1.5 million tonnes per annum of high quality coking coal and a potential mine life of at least 30 years.
