AFTER the oil-price crash comes the slump in coal prices. Australian coal producers Xstrata and Rio Tinto last month took a 44% cut in the price of their first large deals with Japan in 2009, confirming industry fears that the coal boom is over. The companies are understood to have settled thermal coal prices with Japanese utility firms at $70-72 a tonne for the year beginning 1 April. Contract prices are fast coming off record highs, with contracts settled at $125/t at the same negotiations last year, and Xstrata locking in a 12-month contract at a record $155/t just seven months ago.

Despite its high carbon emissions, coal had until recently undergone a renaissance of sorts, as the world looked for alternative sources of energy in the face of high oil prices. But oil's new-found affordability, together with the global economic downturn, has inevitably dampened the market for coal.

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