Combined coal stocks at China's four major Bohai Sea ports stood at 13.98 million mt on Sunday, down 188,000 mt or 1.4% week on week, Qinhuangdao Port said Monday.
It attributed the drop to partial maintenance on the Datong-Qinhuangdao railroad over October 8-22 which that cut inbound coal railings to the ports by about 15%.
Coal stocks at Qinhuangdao Port rose 3.8% week on week to 5.29 million mt Sunday; stocks at Caofeidian Port rose 5.1% to 2.97 million mt. However, stocks at Jingtang Port fell 7.9%% to 2.56 million mt and stocks at Tianjin Port slipped 1.7% to 2.95 million mt.
Queuing vessels at the four major sea ports totaled 182 Sunday, up from 163 a week earlier, the port said in a statement.
Qinhuangdao Port held 93 vessels Sunday, down one week on week; Jingtang Port 32 vessels, up eight week on week; Tianjin Port 35 vessels, up 14 week on week; and Caofeidian Port 22 vessels, down two week on week.
Coal stocks at Fangcheng Port in southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, a key import facility for coal from South Africa, stood at 5.05 million mt Sunday, down 3.6% from 5.24 million mt a week earlier, a port source said. Stocks at Fangcheng Port stood at 5.48 million mt October 14 and 5.3 million mt October 7.
The port has a design coal storage capacity of 8 million mt.
There are four overseas coal cargoes slated to be unloaded at Fangcheng Port in the week to November 4, including two Capesize cargoes of Australian metallurgical coal, one Capesize cargo of South African thermal coal and one Supramax cargo of Indonesian thermal coal.
