NSW coal: better days ahead. But not just yet

摘要

In a bizarre twist, the difference in the openings of the financial years in Japan and Australia has provided the best profit performance in a decade in the latest NSW coal industry survey. With the Japanese year beginning on April 1, the full impact of last year's large price cuts on NSW miners was not felt. Only three months of those cuts of US 3.85 dollars on coking coal and US2 dollars for steaming coal fed through into the miners' 1993-4 figures, and hence the aberration in the result. At a time when everybody was expecting the survey to show some horror figures, especially as coal production was down to 62.3mt from 69mt the year before, the survey by the NSW Coal Association actually showed an increased return on shareholders' funds to 9.7 percent.