News: UPDATE 1-Australia's New Hope declares force majeure after storm knocks out coal terminal

• New Hope declares force majeure on Australia coal shipments
• Storm knocks out its terminal in Queensland state

(Adds comment, details of shipments)

SYDNEY, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Australia's New Hope Corp (NHC) declared force majeure on Tuesday after a storm with cyclone-strength winds brought coal shipments at its 10 million-tonnes-per-year Queensland Bulk Handling terminal to a halt.

The storm late on Sunday knocked out the terminal's shiploader, according to New Hope, which uses the terminal in the Port of Brisbane to ship around 75 percent of the thermal coal it mines in Australia. Most of the coal is sold to coal-fired power stations in Asia.

"A state of force majeure has been declared," a New Hope spokeswoman told Reuters.

Another mining company, Yancoal Ltd (YAL), also uses the terminal to ship some of its coal, the spokeswoman said.

Yancoal could not be immediately reached for comment. "A preliminary assessment of the damage was undertaken on Monday 14 November 2016 and initial indications are that it could take several weeks for the shiploader to be repaired. During this time the terminal will not be capable of loading coal onto ships," New Hope said in a statement.

The company also said it was assessing the financial cost of the interruption and warned it could lead to lower sales in the current financial year.

New Hope shipped about 1.5 million tonnes of coal through the terminal in the last quarter, according to the spokeswoman.

Port of Brisbane officials were not immediately available for comment. New Hope and Yancoal are the only coal miners to use the port.