UPDATE: Aston Resources Secures 7.1 Million Tons Capacity At Coal Port

Coal developer Aston Resources Ltd. (AZT.AU) will be able to export an additional 7.1 million metric tons of coal from Newcastle Port after signing an agreement with a shipper using the port's NCIG coal terminal, the company said Thursday.

Aston will have the 7.1 million tons capacity from July 2013 to the end of June 2016, the company said.

Newcastle in New South Wales state is the world's biggest coal export harbor by volume, accounting for more than 100 million tons a year of mainly thermal coal exports.

"The successful negotiation of this agreement...provides the majority of the port capacity required by Aston until 2015," said Chief Executive Todd Hannigan in a statement.

Aston plans to mine an average of 10.8 million metric tons a year from its Maules Creek project, in the Gunnedah Basin north of the Hunter Valley coal basin.

But the company is at a relative disadvantage in that it is not a shareholder in either of the large port operators at Newcastle, BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP) and Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU)-dominated Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group, or NCIG, and Rio Tinto PLC (RIO) and Xstrata PLC (XTA.LN)-dominated Port Waratah Coal Services, or PWCS.

Aston suffered a setback last December when its allocations from PWCS came in below its requests. The company Aston was awarded 2 million tons per year from 2012, 5 million tons from 2013, and 10.5 million tons from 2015, taking its full capacity potential to 14 million tons a year from 2015.

The latest award from NCIG should take its export potential in 2013 to 12.1 million tons, above its planned average production rate. Earlier this week, Aston also requested PWCS to deliver an extra 1 million tons per year from 2014 and 3.5 million tons from 2015, and expects allocations to be confirmed in December.

-By David Fickling, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]