A drop in demand, combined with an increase in supply, means that thermal coal prices are becoming hammering.
Last week, the spot price of 6000 kilocalories per kilogram was almost $US51 lower than $US20 / t in a month.
Lower grade thermal coal is priced at $US40 / t-which, in some situations, will be lower than the cost of production.
It was six years ago that low coal prices came from the local industry. In May 2014, Vale closed its open pit and underground mine, known as the Integra Complex near Singleton, with the loss of hundreds of workers.
Prices peaked again at US$ 117 / t in August 2018, before falling steadily to current levels in the last 22 months.
Fortunately, mining companies are entering into annual supply contracts with the Financial Times reporting Glencore, the region's largest coal producer, in its annual supply agreement with Japanese utility companies at just under US$ 70 / t at the beginning of April.
The fact that production costs are lower due to low fuel prices and the Australian dollar is also lower is also helping the miners.
Coking coal prices have had an effect sitting at $113 a tonne last week.
This time last year, Queensland Coking Coal Miners were racking up in boom time prices of US$ 210 per tonne, according to the Australian Financial Review (AFR)
On other mining news, the AFR announced that unions had prevailed on their fight against BHP chief executive Mike Henry 's landmark labor relations law, after the Fair Work Commission upheld the appeal against two key business agreements.
On Friday, the review panel reported that "two fundamental mistakes" had told the Deputy Chairman of the Fair Work Commission, Gerard Boyce, of the decision in December to sanction the two BHP business agreements.
The two enterprise agreements concern the new "operations services" subsidiaries of BHP, which have employed more than 2300 staff over the past year to carry out tasks previously performed by external contractors.
The Operations Services Enterprise Agreements will now be heard again by the Commission's full bench.
