re: sabotage at newstan - roidz Izalokar,You are right regarding...

re: sabotage at newstan - roidz Izalokar,
You are right regarding closing the less profitable mines and using Anvill Hill as a substitute but that only works if the Anvill Hill product can be substituted for that which the mine you are going to close produces and as Anvill Hill is predominately thermal it limits your possibilities. As far the PCI price drop i guess its a reflection of the product it tends to be of a lesser quality so why buy it if you can get better quality coking at a resonble price. You mention the Jap and Korean growth of the 60s and 70s and true there was a spike but in real terms the coal prices did not hit there peaks in real terms until the early 80s and it was basically all down hill from then on (over supply and remember Sth Africa was out of the market then too as a supplier) and i guess the start of Japans stagnation didnt help. Another factor this time round is you have huge volume coming out of Indo this year greater than our exports it really is all about swings and roundabouts, i guess. As an update good news this week is the longwall at Newstan is finally making better progress and management have lodge the DA for the Newstan / Awaba open cut , the bad news (sorry Zen) is the greenies are up in arms and have vowed to stop it going ahead so we will have to see how it develops. It looks like being a long fight.