More than US$500 million of Australian coal is on ships anchored off Chinese ports, as a diplomatic spat between the two countries cuts into trade, idles a portion of the world’s dry-bulk carriers and threatens to spiral into a humanitarian crisis.
More than 50 vessels have been waiting a month or longer to offload coal from Australia, according to separate analyses of shipping data conducted by Bloomberg and data intelligence firm Kpler SAS.
There are about 5.7 million tonnes of coal on the anchored ships, which are mostly cape and Panamax-sized vessels, with about 1,000 crew, Kpler data showed.
Photo: Reuters
The cargo and crew are victims of China’s move to blacklist a wide swathe of Australian commodities and foodstuffs, ratcheting up tensions between the two trading partners that have deteriorated since Huawei Technologies Co (華為) was in 2018 barred from building Australia’s 5G network.
Chinese power stations and steel mills were told to stop using Australian coal and ports were instructed not to offload the fuel, Bloomberg News reported last month.
“Aussie coal producers might be looking at other destinations for coal, such as Japan or India, but given the quantum of impact, they will likely trim down production as well,” said Abhinav Gupta, a research analyst at Braemar ACM Shipbroking. “This is leading to seafarers being stuck on ships outside of their contractual obligation, a situation that was started by the pandemic.”
A total of 66 vessels loaded with Australian coal are in Chinese waters, according to shipping data analyzed by Bloomberg, with most of them off the northeast coast near the ports of Jingtang and Caofeidian.
Meanwhile, Kpler identified 53 vessels holding Australian coal waiting about four weeks or longer to discharge at Chinese ports.
Thirty-nine of the ships are carrying about 4.1 million tonnes of metallurgical coal, while nine are carrying about 1.1 million tonnes of thermal coal, Kpler data showed.
Another five vessels were carrying types of coal that were not identified, it showed.
Australian coking coal traded at about US$101.57 a tonne in Singapore on Monday, while thermal coal traded at about US$63.40 on ICE Futures Europe.
Assuming that the unidentified cargoes were the cheaper of the two types, the value of coal on the vessels identified by Kpler is approximately US$519 million.
Ships carrying coal from all exporters generally waited three to five days for a berth prior to China’s restrictions on Australian shipments, Kpler data showed.
The flotilla of vessels waiting to offload is also tightening the fleet supply in the region, Gupta said.
There were 133 dry bulk vessels waiting to discharge at Chinese ports in the middle of this month, 59 of which had been waiting for 20 days or more, BIMCO said in report released on Tuesday, citing ship-tracking data from VesselsValue.
Chinese officials have blamed Australia’s “cold-war mentality” for worsening relations between the nations, adding that its trade actions are consistent with WTO rules.
Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) earlier this month acknowledged the plight of one vessel, saying that Beijing had not restricted it from leaving and the situation was down to the freight forwarder’s commercial interests.
From India to China to the US, automakers cannot make vehicles — not that no one wants any, but because a more than US$450 billion industry for semiconductors got blindsided. How did both sides end up here? Over the past two weeks, automakers across the world have bemoaned the shortage of chips. Germany’s Audi, owned by Volkswagen AG, would delay making some of its high-end vehicles because of what chief executive officer Markus Duesmann called a “massive” shortfall in an interview with the Financial Times. The firm has furloughed more than 10,000 workers and reined in production. That is a further blow
MOBILE SMART: The Dimensity 1200 is 22 percent better in terms of performance than its predecessor, and 25 percent more power-efficient, the handset chip designer said MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday unveiled its premium 5G processors — the Dimensity 1200 and Dimensity 1100 — as it vies for a larger slice of the world’s rapidly growing 5G smartphone market. Manufactured using Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (台積電) 6-nanometer process technology, the Dimensity 1200 processor performs 22 percent better than the previous generation Dimensity 1000+ processor, and is 25 percent more power-efficient, MediaTek said. Chinese smartphone brands Xiaomi Corp (小米) and Realme Mobile Telecommunications (Shenzhen) Co (銳爾覓移動通信) are to be the first adopters of the latest Dimensity chips, the companies said during a virtual media briefing. Xiaomi plans to equip its first
Answering to a reported request by Germany to help address a chip shortage in its auto industry, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday said that it was in talks with domestic chip suppliers. Foreign media over the weekend reported that German Minister of Economic Affairs Peter Altmaier had sent a request to Taipei to ask Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to cooperate more closely with German automakers to provide microchips and sensors, to bridge a shortage that has emerged over the past few months. The MOEA said that it had not yet received the request and could therefore not elaborate
FOCUS ON FOUNDRIES: An analyst said that some investors would be disappointed because they were expecting a larger announcement of a partnership with TSMC Intel Corp’s incoming chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger on Thursday pledged to regain the company’s lead in chip manufacturing, countering growing calls from some investors to shed that part of its business. “I am confident that the majority of our 2023 products will be manufactured internally,” Gelsinger said. “At the same time, given the breadth of our portfolio, it’s likely that we will expand our use of external foundries for certain technologies and products.” He plans to provide more details after officially taking over the CEO role on Feb. 15, but Gelsinger was clear that Intel is sticking with its once mighty