Could this ease the number of coal trains?

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Supply glut stunts prices for coal

Bloomberg News

MELBOURNE, Australia — Plentiful supplies of coal used to generate electricity are poised to cap prices for the fuel near the lowest in five years, even as demand rises heading into the Northern Hemisphere winter.

Power-station coal at the port of Newcastle in Australia, the world's second-biggest exporter, will be little changed in the three-month period starting Oct. 1, according to UBS and Bank of America Corp., even as utilities in Asia buy more toward the end of the year. Prices gained 8.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 and 7.6 percent in the same period of 2012.
Colombia, the world's fourth-largest shipper, is seeking to boost output to a record in 2014 just as rising production in China, the biggest consumer, limits gains in export prices. The supply glut that's driven coal to the lowest since 2009 will more than double next year, according to Morgan Stanley.

“The market is well supplied,” Daniel Morgan, an analyst at UBS in Sydney, said on July 22. “November, December is when you typically see a big drive to stock up ahead of winter. At this stage, there is so much supply around that it may not necessarily be a price-driving event, it might just provide some stability.”

The glut is projected to expand to 14.9 million metric tons next year, from 6.8 million in 2014, according to a July 8 report from Morgan Stanley. Global exports are forecast to climb to 989 million in 2015, from 959 million, the bank said.

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20140809/BIZ/140809248