Coal Keeps Dropping as OPEC-Like Tactic Stymied by Dollar
This article is for subscribers only.
Coal prices, already down 52 percent since 2011, are forecast to keep falling. The rout shows that exporters’ OPEC-like tactics of trying to squeeze out high-cost producers have been frustrated by the rising dollar.
Miners from Colombia to Australia maintained output as prices fell for a fourth year in 2014 amid a global glut of seaborne coal that Deutsche Bank AG says is poised to triple this year. A 19 percent jump since July in the Intercontinental Exchange’s dollar index, which tracks the greenback against 10 major peers, has helped companies that extract the power-plant fuel whose costs are measured in local currencies.