BHP Billiton's Coal Chief Sees Black Days Ahead for Coking Coal

SYDNEY--BHP Billiton's coal chief, Mike Henry, says he expects no recovery in coking-coal prices, already languishing at decade lows, at any time soon.

In comments to The Australian newspaper, Mr. Henry, who heads the world's biggest coking-coal exporter, said that despite the price outlook, he intends to boost production from the firm's Queensland coal mines through increased productivity.

"When I started in the business at the beginning of the year, I was not expecting prices would come off by 20%-25%," he said. "I'm not really expecting you are going to see a sharp recovery any time soon, given the amount of oversupply you see in the market and the fact that seaborne import demand into China has tapered off."

Mr. Henry added that uncertainty over how China is implementing new regulations to test for fluorine in coal, had further dented demand.

"One problem is that they (China) don't use the same testing standards that we use and the results on the Chinese side can be quite different from the results here--that creates uncertainty," Mr. Henry told the newspaper.

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