China is set to allow a shipment of Australian coal into the country, despite a ban on such imports remaining in place as tensions between Beijing and Canberra escalate.
A cargo of 135,000 tons of Australian thermal coal on the vessel Alpha Era, which has been waiting since late May to unload at the Chinese port of Fangchenggang, is expected to clear customs and is bound for a local user, said a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the information is private.
It was not clear why the cargo is expected to clear customs, the person said.
A separate person familiar with the ban on Australian coal, although not the Alpha Era cargo, said that the order barring such shipments remained unchanged.
The second person said that customs did not explain why the cargo was being processed.
While it remains unclear why an exception seems to have been made for the Alpha Era cargo, the shipment did arrive at Fangchenggang in late May.
That was about five months before Chinese officials verbally ordered traders to stop purchasing Australian coal.
Two other ships, the Dong-A Eos and the Dong-A Astrea, recently completed unloading Australian coal at the port of Jingtang, while a third vessel, the Dong-A Oknos, is in the process, according to data intelligence firm Kpler.
It was not clear whether those cargoes would also be cleared by customs.
The vessels were part of a flotilla of more than 50 ships that have been waiting at least a month to offload coal from Australia, according to separate analysis of shipping data conducted by Bloomberg and Kpler last month.
Chinese coal supplies have been limited in the past few weeks amid safety checks at domestic mines and a COVID-19 outbreak that slowed truck deliveries from Mongolia.
“The speed of domestic coal price increases in China will to some extent decide how soon we could expect more Australia coal shipments to be discharged,” said Monica Zhu, a dry bulk analyst with Kpler.
Thermal coal for delivery next month dropped from a record high yesterday, falling as much as much as 3.6 percent on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange.
Coking coal decreased from a four-year high, dropping as much as 1.8 percent on the Dalian Commodity Exchange.
Spokespeople for the Tangshan Port Group Co (唐山港集團), which operates the Jingtang terminal, and the Beibu Gulf Port Group Co (北部灣港務集團), which operates the Fangchenggang facility, declined to comment.
China customs did not immediately respond to a fax seeking comment.
China has blacklisted a wide swathe of Australian commodities and foodstuffs, spoiling relations between the two trading partners.
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