COALspot.com - Growing US coal supplies + low shipping costs = Asia as target.

According to Irwan Budiarto analyst at Bahana Securities, US Coal companies, since Q1, 20122, have shifted their coal sales from domestic to overseas, helped by low transportation cost as reflected by the low Baltic Dry Index. US exports in 2011 grew significantly to 118.2 m tons (+31.3% y-y) with Europe (50.3%) and Asia (25.7%) as major destinations.

With the Euro zone slowing, more and more US coal, most of which are metallurgical coal, are finding their way to Asia, specifically Japan (11% of Indonesia’s 2011 total coal exports goes to Japan) and China (33%), Bahana said in its report.

Thermal coal prices: Heading further down
The coal inventories at key power plants in China remain high, increasing by 5.4 m tons from end April to 88.9m tons on 20 May, sufficient to generate power plants in the next 26 days (normally 15-17 days).

In China’s Qinhuangdao, the world’s largest coal port by capacity (9m tones), have exceeded levels, the first time since late 2008 during the height of the financial crisis. At that time, thermal coal prices was dropped sharply. Last week, Qinhuangdao’s inventory reached 8.2m tones, up 1.1m tones in just 10 days, suggesting lack of demand.

It is clear that thermal coal prices have only one way to go: Down.

Bahana was also reduced its coal price assumptions by 15% - 38% for the period 2012 - 2014 despite yesterday’s  Newcastle average coal price y-y drops nearly 15%, reflecting about 10% fall to USD 107.6 from its recent peak of USD 118.9/ton. However the current coal prices, remaining much higher than the gas prices.

As  coal prices are below USD 90/ton in June 2012, the first time since August 2010, Bahana has reduced  its 2012 coal benchmark price assumption by 15% to USD 97/ton (2H 12 average: USD88/ton; Current: USD89/ton) and by 29% to USD85/ton in 2013, before falling further to USD80/ton in 2014, in line with the expected fixing of China’s railway problem, which has affected imported coal usage, including Indonesia.

As a result of lower coal prices, Bahana has downgraded coal companies’ 2012  earnings by 6% - 40%, translating to lower target prices (TPs) within their coverage.

About Bahana Securities
PT. Bahana Securities was established in 1993 and 100% of its shares are owned by Perusahaan Perseroan (Persero) PT. Bahana Pembinaan Usaha Indonesia and member of  the Indonesian Stock Exchange. Since its establishment up to this date BAHANA Securities strives and works hard to introduce innovation, contribution, committment to play an important role in the development of Indonesian stock exchange development.

Today BAHANA Securities provides numerous innovative services in the investment banking, stock exchange and bonds. With a reliable research ability, an efficient back office, effective IT implementation, BAHANA Securities rises to the challenges as a leading securites company in Indonesia.

Supported by trade transactions that are consistently ranked as the three biggest nasional stockbroker agency with the highest value, coupled with incisive market analysis, we were awarded "The Best Investment Bank", "The Best Equity House", and "The Best Broker" from The Assets, etc