Richard Marles slammed for talking down thermal coal market
Resources groups have reprimanded Labor’s Richard Marles for saying the collapse of the thermal coal market would be a “good thing”.
Resources groups have reprimanded opposition frontbencher Richard Marles for saying the collapse of the thermal coal market would be a “good thing”, warning it will bring into question Labor’s commitment to the sector for tens of thousands of coalmining workers.
NSW Minerals Council chief executive Stephen Galilee said yesterday that Mr Marles’s comments were “ill-informed” and “not reflected by any credible analyst or expert forecasts of the future prospects for thermal coal”.
“It doesn’t reflect the positive future for our thermal coal exports out of NSW and it’s the kind of comment that makes 24,000 coalmining workers and their families in NSW very nervous about the commitment of the Labor Party to the future of their industry,” Mr Galilee told The Australian.
Speaking on Sky News yesterday, Mr Marles — Labor’s defence spokesman — said the global market for the commodity had “collapsed”. “At one level that’s a good thing because what that implies is the world is acting in relation to climate change,” he said.
Mr Marles later clarified his comment by saying: “Coal clearly has an important and enduring role to play, even as we transition to more renewables, and I should have made that clear.”
Coal Council of Australia chief executive Greg Evans said Mr Marles was “talking down our thermal exports” and described his initial comments as “factually incorrect and ill-advised”.
“Thermal coal prices remain stable and there is growing demand for our high-quality Australian product,” Mr Evans said.
“Our key customers throughout Asia require affordable and reliable energy to sustain their fast-growing economies.
“As shadow defence spokesman, he (Mr Marles) would benefit from a briefing on the energy situation amongst many of our neighbours because it also has immense strategic importance.
“Australian coal helps provide energy security and hence stability to many countries in North Asia and increasingly Southeast Asia. A country such as Japan depends on Australia for 70 per cent of its thermal coal needs.”
Mr Evans said it was hard to understand why a senior Labor figure “wants to talk down our largest export and the livelihoods of the working men and women who are its backbone”.
Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane told The Australian: “The comments were uninformed and reckless.” He said there would be a very strong demand in India for thermal coal exports and argued the thermal coal price was holding up.
The International Energy Agency has forecast that global coal demand over the next five years will be stable, with declines in the US and Europe being offset by growth in India and other Asian nations.
Australian coal exports last year were worth a total of $66.2 billion — Australia’s most valuable single export — ahead of the $62bn raised by iron ore.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data released earlier this month showed that coal export sales rose 15.9 per cent last year, buoyed by strong prices for both thermal coal, used to generate electricity, and metallurgical coal, used to manufacture steel.
Thermal coal prices have almost doubled, from $US50 a tonne in February 2016 to $US97 a tonne last month.
In year-average terms, Australia’s thermal coal spot prices rose from an average of $US65 a tonne in 2016 to $US87 a tonne in 2017.
They averaged $US105 per tonne last year.