Kastel,
I thought I'd respond to your post re Fording here. I'm long a whole 100 shares from 19, and I tend to think it is ahead of itself.
Of course, I thought that prior to the 3rd qtr conf call, thinking the CDN$ strength would hurt profit once the '03 hedges ran off. Further information revealed about the nature and extent of their USD/CDN$ hedging cast that issue in a new light, and suggested mgmt might be capable of navigating unruly currency cross currents better than I.
My more recent scare was the prospect of Aussie coal displacing Canadian sources, especially in light of higher shipping costs. I never quite nailed down the shipping differentials though. I did note the Aussie dollar stronger than the CDN$ vs the USD.
I didn't know CNX did met coal- never considered the US a competitive player in global markets. With the USD sinking, maybe I need to reconsider.
Coal notes;
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Westshore (see also, Neptune Bulk Terminals (Canada) Ltd- 46% FDG interest)
World demand for metallurgical coal is not expected to increase materially as a result of the level of steel production and technological changes which are expected to reduce the amount of coke used in the steelmaking process.
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Pacific Coal Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto Ltd, said it was optimistic that coal production at its newly-commissioned Hail Creek mine should reach five million tonnes next year.
... 2 billion tonne resource, believed to be one of the world's largest coking coal deposits.
The mine is a joint venture between Rio Tinto's wholly-owned Queensland coal subsidiary Pacific Coal, which has a 92 per cent stake, Marubeni (5.33 per cent) and Sumisho Coal Development Queensland (2.67 per cent).
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?Coking coal vs metallurgical coal
coal.ca
pig-iron.com
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Coal prices set to heat up
Nov 24, 2003
The Australian coal industry can expect to benefit from big price increases in the year ahead, a major coal conference has been told.
The McCloskey Group chairman Gerard McCloskey said he was expecting coal prices to rise by about $US11.00 in 2004. He said conditions in the freight and coking coal markets currently were unlike anything the industry had experienced before.
McCloskey added that current rumours about price rises were between $US5.00 and $US11.00 a tonne.
However, he said he believed an $US11.00 rise was more likely as a $US5.00 rise would only be appropriate if there was an oversupply in the market.
"If you look more broadly at the uncertainties out there you will see everything points to a big increase," he told the 8th Annual Australian Coal Forecast 2004 Conference.
onenews.nzoom.com |
