<p>Coal shipments should resume tomorrow (Wednesday, January 25) at the Hay Point terminal operated by the BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance, the company said.</p> <p>Repairs to the second loader should be completed either late today or early Wednesday.</p> <p>No coal has been loaded at the terminal, about 40km south of Mackay in Queensland, since the end of a telescopic ship loader fell into the hold of a ship on Thursday night. </p> <p>Damage to ship, the Korean-flagged bulker <em>Hyundai Island</em> , was minimal.</p> <p>The incident follows a collision between a ship loader and an on-board crane, which shut down Ship Loader No. 1 and cut port capacity by 30% on December 28. </p> <p>Despite the terminal shutdown, the mines have continued to produce coal, stockpiling it and diverting it through the nearby Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal and the port of Gladstone.</p> <p>BHP Billiton said yesterday that nine ships were anchored off Hay Point, up from four last week. </p> <p>The port is not expected to be back in full operation until March and, until then, BMA has negotiated additional capacity through nearby Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal and Gladstone. </p> <p>That arrangement would enable the alliance to meet its shipping targets for the balance of January and all of February, a BHP spokeswoman told the <em>Herald Sun</em> . </p> <p>The redirection of the vessels to alternate ports is not expected to cause major disruptions or delays. </p> <p>Greg Smith, a Babcock & Brown Infrastructure general manager of operations for Dalrymple Bay, told the paper that spare capacity would be found from queue management or swapping with existing terminal users. </p> <p>There were just eight ships waiting offshore to load coal and another 10 to 15 could easily be accommodated, he said. </p> <p>About 35m tonnes of coal was shipped through Hay Point last year. </p> <br />
