Australia ups coal exports

Australia ups coal exports

Australia's coal exports rose 9.3 percent year on year to 137.7 million tons in the first seven months of 2005. The increase is attributed to the improvement in coking coal shipments, rising 7.3 million tons year on year to 73 million tons during the January-July period. The growth was driven primarily by import demand in India (10.6 million tons) and Japan (26.2 million tons). In addition, coking coal exports to Europe rose 0.9 percent to 15.1 million tons over the same period.