UPDATE: Aston Resources Secures 7.1 Million Tons Capacity At Coal Port
September 28 2011 - 10:56PM
Dow Jones News
Coal developer Aston Resources Ltd. (AZT.AU) will be able to
export an additional 7.1 million metric tons of coal from Newcastle
Port after signing an agreement with a shipper using the port's
NCIG coal terminal, the company said Thursday.
Aston will have the 7.1 million tons capacity from July 2013 to
the end of June 2016, the company said.
Newcastle in New South Wales state is the world's biggest coal
export harbor by volume, accounting for more than 100 million tons
a year of mainly thermal coal exports.
"The successful negotiation of this agreement...provides the
majority of the port capacity required by Aston until 2015," said
Chief Executive Todd Hannigan in a statement.
Aston plans to mine an average of 10.8 million metric tons a
year from its Maules Creek project, in the Gunnedah Basin north of
the Hunter Valley coal basin.
But the company is at a relative disadvantage in that it is not
a shareholder in either of the large port operators at Newcastle,
BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP) and Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU)-dominated
Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group, or NCIG, and Rio Tinto PLC
(RIO) and Xstrata PLC (XTA.LN)-dominated Port Waratah Coal
Services, or PWCS.
Aston suffered a setback last December when its allocations from
PWCS came in below its requests. The company Aston was awarded 2
million tons per year from 2012, 5 million tons from 2013, and 10.5
million tons from 2015, taking its full capacity potential to 14
million tons a year from 2015.
The latest award from NCIG should take its export potential in
2013 to 12.1 million tons, above its planned average production
rate. Earlier this week, Aston also requested PWCS to deliver an
extra 1 million tons per year from 2014 and 3.5 million tons from
2015, and expects allocations to be confirmed in December.
-By David Fickling, Dow Jones Newswires; +61 2 8272 4689;
david.fickling@dowjones.com
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