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Tuesday, 08 December 09
VOLATILE COAL PRICES SPUR ASIAN HEDGING
 Volatile coal prices are forcing staid Asian power firms to change the way they buy fuel, setting the scene for a hedging boom as a growing array of investment banks come forward to aid the firms' first forays into coal derivatives.
A big prize awaits banks such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan if they can grab a share of this business, since the utilities account for about 60% of total seaborne steam coal trade of around 600 million tonnes.
Their participation could double the Asian coal derivatives market to some 400 million tonnes over the next two years, trade sources say, although there are hurdles to overcome before Asia can match Europe, where derivatives volumes exceed physical trade by several multiples.
"We're starting to see a crack in the armour among the Japanese utilities this year and there's now hedging demand out of the sector," Geoff Clear, Head of Commodities Trading at Australia & New Zealand Bank, told Reuters.
"The coal derivatives market in Asia is in a good space and is ready to take off."
Although the first over-the-counter coal trading deals were introduced to Asia about eight years ago through globalCOAL, North Asian buyers prefer to sign long-term contracts to guarantee low prices and to secure premium quality coal.
But sharp volatility in prices, which swung between USD 50 and USD 200 a tonne last year, means this decades-old method is bringing increased risk to buyers, who can sometimes be paying far more than prevailing spot rates.
Experience has also taught utilities that purchasing coal at a fixed price does not guarantee supplies, as miners have delayed shipments when the index rises above contract prices.
"We see the market changing. Many utilities that employed very traditional ways of buying coal are now open to new hedging instruments," said Patrick Markey, Chief Operating Officer of globalCOAL Singapore, an electronic trading platform.
This year, Japanese utilities have bought about 20% of their annual coal needs, or about 26 million tonnes, through index-linked contracts and the proportion is expected to rise to around 30% in 2010, producers and traders said.
For the first time, Korea Western Power Co is also planning to buy between 10% and 20% of its annual coal requirements of 12 million tonnes through index-linked contracts next year, a utility source said.
As Asian utilities are increasingly accepting of contracts linked directly to the Newcastle price index, globalCOAL's NEWC swaps become an obvious risk-management tool to reduce most of the worry around volatility.
The size of the global coal derivatives market is hard to gauge, but brokers said it has been growing rapidly, to 1.3 billion tonnes in 2006 from an estimated 750 million tonnes in 2004.
Around 2 billion tonnes of coal derivatives are expected to be traded globally in 2009, of which the globalCOAL Newcastle market accounts for about 10%, up from just five percent two years ago -- reflecting the rapid growth potential of the Asian derivatives market.
"We are waiting for the big entrance of Japanese and Korean utilities into the swaps market," said Clear. "Some of them are still weighing up their choices, but there is now a marked change in their attitudes."
Recent participation of some Japanese trading houses in the paper market was also a sign that utilities are now open to having some risk products embedded into their traditional bilateral contracts, he added.
Some industry observers said the coal trading joint venture set up by Japan's Chubu Electric and French power provider EDF in 2007, called Chubu Energy Trading (CET), may have first paved the way for change.
While some traditional coal users were dipping their toes cautiously into the market, CET took big strides. In just two years, the unit was buying about half of Chubu's 10 million tonnes of annual coal needs through the spot market -- and managed to stay profitable in a period of wild coal price swings
Other utilities to recently step up hedging include Japan's No. 1 utility, J-Power, which has added a former Barclays commodity trader to its hedging team, and South Korea's East-West Power Co Ltd, which is looking to partner LG Corp to set up a coal trading unit.
Challenges ahead
Despite expected growth in the Asian coal trading market, trade sources say it will take some time before liquidity in the Pacific coal market catches up with its European counterpart, where the value of derivative trading exceeds the underlying market by many multiples.
"The innate conservatism of the Japanese utilities is a stumbling block," said a senior trader at an investment bank.
"The middle management is all for it. They understand how it can reduce fuel costs but have a hard time convincing their bosses, who still hold the view that hedging will introduce another risk to the equation."
A full-scale deregulation of the power markets is also needed to drive Asian utilities to search for the lowest-cost fuel.
Despite having undergone a partial deregulation, utilities in Japan and South Korea still enjoy a large degree of regional monopoly, while Taiwan's power market is still state-owned. With the freedom to pass on any fuel cost rises to users, there is no strong impetus to hedge costs.
"Many Japanese utilities are hedging now because they want a fixed price for their coal as opposed to getting the lowest price," said a trader at one of the top Japanese utilities.
Other hurdles to overcome include the establishment of a widely accepted Indonesian market index, traders and buyers said.
Although globalCOAL and Argus provide a weekly average price for different grades of Indonesian coal, market players say there are too few trades to get an accurate view of prices.
"Considering how Indonesia is the world's largest thermal coal exporter, there's definitely a need for the index to mature and to have some sort of a forward curve before utilities can use that as a hedging tool," said a trader at an investment bank.
Source: Money Control
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Friday, 20 November 09
INDONESIAN CO PLANS JV WITH NAGARJUNA
Economic Times reported that, Infrastructure firm Nagarjuna Constructions Company (NCC) is set to form a joint venture with an Indonesian coal minin ...
Thursday, 19 November 09
S. KOREA TO BUY COAL FROM CHINA FOR US$ 85-90/T IN 2010
Head of one S. Korea power company on November 18 unveiled that S. Korea’s power companies may purchase coal from China at the contract price ...
Thursday, 19 November 09
SNAPSHOT OF INDONESIA'S COAL INDUSTRY - FACT BOX BY REUTERS
Indonesian plans to cap coal exports to meet domestic demand will not hit global supplies in the near term, but could start to bite in three to five ...
Thursday, 19 November 09
INDONESIA COAL EXPORTS CURB WILL TAKE TIME TO BITE
Indonesia's plans to cap coal exports to satisfy demand at home are unlikely to crimp global supplies for as long as five years, when new power pla ...
Thursday, 19 November 09
THE GOVERNMENT TO GUARANTEE COAL SUPPLIES FOR POWER PLANTS
The government guarantees coal supplies for power plants under a 10,000 MW-capacity power plant construction acceleration program.
Minister of En ...
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- Marubeni Corporation - India
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- Chamber of Mines of South Africa
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- Independent Power Producers Association of India
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- Africa Commodities Group - South Africa
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- Directorate Of Revenue Intelligence - India
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- Alfred C Toepfer International GmbH - Germany
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- The State Trading Corporation of India Ltd
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- Agrawal Coal Company - India
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- Eastern Coal Council - USA
- Indian Oil Corporation Limited
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- Mintek Dendrill Indonesia
- Intertek Mineral Services - Indonesia
- Bhoruka Overseas - Indonesia
- Holcim Trading Pte Ltd - Singapore
- GVK Power & Infra Limited - India
- Sojitz Corporation - Japan
- Mercuria Energy - Indonesia
- IEA Clean Coal Centre - UK
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- Wilmar Investment Holdings
- New Zealand Coal & Carbon
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- Thai Mozambique Logistica
- Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission - India
- Mercator Lines Limited - India
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- Kepco SPC Power Corporation, Philippines
- Thiess Contractors Indonesia
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- Ambuja Cements Ltd - India
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- Singapore Mercantile Exchange
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- CIMB Investment Bank - Malaysia
- Electricity Authority, New Zealand
- Larsen & Toubro Limited - India
- The University of Queensland
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- GAC Shipping (India) Pvt Ltd
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- Savvy Resources Ltd - HongKong
- Banpu Public Company Limited - Thailand
- Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd
- European Bulk Services B.V. - Netherlands
- Essar Steel Hazira Ltd - India
- Chettinad Cement Corporation Ltd - India
- Bukit Baiduri Energy - Indonesia
- Sakthi Sugars Limited - India
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- Gujarat Sidhee Cement - India
- Aditya Birla Group - India
- Interocean Group of Companies - India
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- Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited - India
- Trasteel International SA, Italy
- Samtan Co., Ltd - South Korea
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- Cement Manufacturers Association - India
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- London Commodity Brokers - England
- Bharathi Cement Corporation - India
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- Siam City Cement PLC, Thailand
- Price Waterhouse Coopers - Russia
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- Parry Sugars Refinery, India
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- McConnell Dowell - Australia
- Manunggal Multi Energi - Indonesia
- Siam City Cement - Thailand
- ICICI Bank Limited - India
- Binh Thuan Hamico - Vietnam
- Parliament of New Zealand
- Indonesian Coal Mining Association
- Economic Council, Georgia
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