CAPE TOWN (miningweekly.com) – The price of metallurgical coal was poised to fall, McCloskey Group founder Gerard McCloskey said on Wednesday.

McCloskey said that he expected prices to go below $200/t in the next quarter.

“The market is running into the peril of over supply,” McCloskey told the IHS McCloskey South African Coal Exports Conference in Cape Town.

BHP Billiton’s greenfield growth alone would be 42-million tons in the next half of the decade. Although BHP’s brownfields growth was less, it remained significant.

Non-BHP growth was 51-million tons additional coking coal and Canadian coking coal exports could be 60-million tons by 2015 to 2020.

Mine closures and amalgamations of metallurgical coal assets were anticipated.

Prices were also bounded by rising cash costs and flat steel prices.

“We’ll see some pain appearing by the end of this year,” McCloskey added.

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