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Wednesday, March 17, 2010

BHP Billiton To Stop Railing Coal To Hay Point Thursday

By Alex Wilson

Dow Jones Newswires

MELBOURNE -(Dow Jones)- BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP.AU) said it plans to stop railing coal to its Hay Point export terminal Thursday as stockpiles at the port are nearly full.

Hay Point, which is part of the miner's BHP Mitsubishi Alliance with Mitsubishi Corp. (8058.TO), was closed a week ago due to high winds associated with a high pressure system and is now facing bad weather associated with Tropical Cyclone Ului.

Production at some of BMA's mines is being affected by the Hay Point closure and BHP Thursday hinted for the first time that there could be an impact on its production schedule.

Where previously the miner has said it expects to make up all of the impact of the closure, a spokeswoman Thursday said the company is now assessing the potential impact of the interruption.

BMA is the world's biggest producer of coking coal for the seaborne market, with total mine capacity of about 58 million metric tons a year. The bulk of that material is exported through Hay Point, which has capacity of up to 45 million tons a year.