Although the latest edition of the Australian Coal Report has the price of top-quality 6000-kilocalorie Newcastle thermal coal dropping back slightly, the February 4 quote of $US246.22 ($345.70) is well above the previous peak for power station coal set in 2008.

The main driver of the price surge is said to be a global shortage of traded coal, brought on by greenhouse-gas-related reluctance to approve new mines or extend the approvals of existing operations, exacerbated by production shortages as mines in NSW juggle their workforces around COVID-19 outbreaks and isolations.

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The wet summer has also hampered production and a number of producers are said to have sold everything they have through to the middle of the year.

Although long-term contracts should protect NSW power stations from the worst of the export price rises, wholesale electricity prices have begun to rise noticeably in recent months.

Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) data shows daily spot wholesale power prices for NSW in February as high as $86 a megawatt-hour, and generally at least twice the level of a year ago, when they were tracking in the $25-to-$35 a megawatt-hour bracket.

Extended higher wholesale power prices would be expected to find their way through to retail power prices, and add to the production costs for larger industrial electricity users.

ACR calculations indicate that Australia exported 198.8 million tonnes of thermal coal and 167.6 million tonnes of steelmaking metallurgical coal in 2021, for a total of 366.5 million tonnes, down 1 per cent on the 370 million tonnes exported in 2020.

Coking coal has been selling for as much as $US445 ($625) a tonne. Indonesia has relaxed its coal export ban but China is still not importing coal from Australia.

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