[miningmx.com] — THE December performance by the Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT) is not as good as it looks at first glance because the published statistics do not add up.
There are two possible explanations. Either the terminal has given an incorrect figure for its coal stockpiles at end-December or it has included shipments made during the first week of January in the December numbers.
A coal industry source indicated the latter was the case because management applied a different approach to dealing with shipments in December – which is the terminal’s financial year-end – compared with the other months of the year.
RBCT received 6 million tonnes (Mt) of coal from Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) during December but exported 8.1Mt. Yet the terminal also said its stock levels had dropped by only 300,000t to 3.3Mt at the end of December from 3.6Mt at the end of November.
So there’s an obvious question – where did the other 1.8Mt of coal come from that the RBCT says it exported during December?
RBCT acting CEO Alan Waller was not immediately available for comment but subsequently said in an emailed statement “month and year-end railings and stock are closed off at 06:00 1 January 2012”.
“Close off for shipping is different, in that if a ship arrived before midnight on 31 December 2011 then it is included in December and that year’s export throughput. This year-end ruling is a long standing historical one,” said Waller.
“There were a large number of ships planned for December, many of them arriving in the second half of December, which resulted in a roll-over of export tonnage into January, accounted for in December.”
JANUARY ALLOCATIONS
That bears what the coal industry source said which was that coal shipped during the first week of January had been allocated to the 2011 entitlements instead of 2012.
He said there was a huge rush of business for the terminal in the second half of December.
“Usually, the cut-off date is the last day of the month subject to a condition that any ship still loading at month-end is included even if the ship actually only sails in the next month,” he said.
The proof of the pudding would be in the January numbers which should be well down, although the coal exporters always attribute this to other factors.
Subtracting 1.8Mt from the RBCT’s stated total exports of 65.5Mt for 2011 paints a different picture of the terminal’s overall performance.
It knocks total exports down to 63.7Mt, which is only marginally better than the 63.4Mt achieved in 2010. This means the terminal shifted around 6.2Mt for the month of December – well within its nameplate capacity of 7.6Mt/month.
TFR ‘REAL WINNER’
The real winner in the coal export stakes is TFR which has maintained its monthly railages at around 6Mt since July, despite widespread cynicism by coal exporters over whether it would be able to do so.
A reason widely cited by coal exporters to explain why monthly exports through the RBCT had been running regularly below TFR railages from mid-year was uncertainty over whether TFR could keep up its performance.
In October, Transnet CEO Brian Molefe was adamant TFR would be able to do so.
“I am sure they (TFR) can continue with that performance. There is nothing at the moment to suggest that they cannot. It is the result of qualitative improvements in the way we do business.”
Industry sources also said there has been a recent positive improvement in the relationship between the RBCT and Transnet, which was helping the situation.
That being the case – and assuming that TFR can keep up the good work – then the RBCT must be looking at exporting around 72Mt of coal during 2012.
That will be a huge improvement on levels achieved over the past decade, but – even if achieved – means RBCT has only caught up on lost ground and is still nowhere near exporting at its new capacity of 91Mt/year.
