Australian operator Pacific National has recorded a decline in volumes for its coal handling operations, despite a rise in net tonne kilometres (NTKs), in the March quarter.
PN announced on Monday it handled 40.0 million tonnes (mt) of coal and other bulk products in the March quarter, down 2% from the 40.8mt recorded in the March quarter last year.
The decline was influenced by a 6.8% drop in coal volumes in the operator’s South East Australia business, which also saw a decline in contract utilisation from 91.5% to 83.9%, year-on-year.
PN put the South East Australia decline down to “lower coal availability for a number of customers, a train derailment that shut the Gunnedah Basin line for 5 days and recurring maintenance issues at Port Kembla Coal Terminal resulting in the cancellation of some planned services.”
A rise in coal volumes for PN’s North East Australia business wasn’t enough to counteract the decline in South East Australia’s figures. But PN, which is growing its business into Queensland to challenge the incumbent, dominant Aurizon, is confident that it can continue to succeed in the Sunshine State.
Tonnes hauled by PN in North East Australia increased 8.5% and NTKs rose 12.1% year on year, while contract utilisation rose from 85.0% to 89.2%.
“The strong haulage rates [in North East Australia] are expected to continue into Q4 2015,” PN commented.
Despite the net decline in volumes across PN’s Australian coal operations, coal NTKs were up 5.1%, from 7.3 billion to 7.7 billion.
And in an opposite trend to coal, Pacific National’s intermodal volumes rose slightly, while intermodal NTKs declined.
Intermodal NTKs declined year-on-year from 5.13 billion to 5.06 billion, while TEUs* handled on rail rose from 187,800 TEUs in March quarter last year to 191,000 TEUs this year.
Pacific National is a subsidiary of the ASX-listed business Asciano.
Asciano said the PN business was progressing well against its business improvement program, with the commencement of its new locomotive maintenance contract starting to contribute to operations in the second half of the financial year.
“The settlement of the final intermodal rail terminal property acquisition in Queensland with Toll Group will occur prior to the end of June,” Asciano continued in its ASX release.
“Recently Toll Group successfully renewed its freight forwarding contract with a major customer in Queensland which encompasses intermodal rail services provided by Pacific National.
“While the market for new projects in coal is subdued Pacific National is continuing to work with its customers on incremental haulage growth opportunities.”
*TEU refers to a twenty-foot equivalent unit, where a twenty-foot shipping container is 1 TEU and a forty-foot container is 2 TEU.