There’s more evidence of lower quality metallurgical coal being sold into the thermal market in Australia. Jo Clarke of Argus Media writes “This can be seen in the lower grade New South Wales (NSW) semi-soft market, where producers have a history of increasing and paring back sales to reflect changing premiums compared with thermal coal. These producers are largely also major exporters of thermal coal and are more opportunistic in their approach to semi-soft sales than the mostly metallurgical coal producers in Queensland.”
You can read the entire article titled “Met Coal Discounts Spur Australian Switch to Thermal” here, or the link below:
https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2362201-met-coal-discounts-spur-australian-switch-to-thermal
The bottom line is that high thermal demand and pricing are providing additional offtake opportunities for the lower quality specs of the met market at a time when met demand is low. This is providing price support for both the low quality and high quality specs of the met market.
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