Platts to launch Bangladesh thermal coal assessment

S&P Global Platts will start publishing a new daily thermal coal price assessment on a CFR Chittagong basis, Bangladesh from June 1, 2020.

The new assessment, to be published on a $/mt basis, will reflect the tradeable value of physical thermal coal cargoes delivered into Bangladesh basis Chittagong port, based on firm bids, offers and trades at the close of Asian trade at 5:30 pm Singapore time (0930 GMT), and follows the Singapore publishing schedule.

In the absence of firm bids, offers and trades, Platts may also take into consideration data that may be relevant to the assessment, which may include but is not limited to, reported transactional activity or notional values heard across the market and freight information from relevant locations.

The decision to publish a daily thermal coal assessment into Bangladesh comes as the South Asian country's thermal coal imports are expected to continue rising in the near term from the 3 million-4 million mt/year observed currently, as new power plants are built to meet the increase in domestic power demand.

SPECIFICATION: The new assessment will reflect the delivered price of thermal coal with a calorific value of 5,000 kcal/kg GAR with a typical sulfur content of 0.8%. Platts will also consider other calorific values with varied sulfur content of up to 2% for assessment purposes but will be normalized to this basis using Platts methodology and the new daily sulfur differential assessment (TCSDA00) that Platts will start publishing from June 1, 2020.

LOCATION: CFR Bangladesh will take into consideration thermal coal cargoes delivered to Chittagong and Mongla, with deliveries into Mongla normalized to Chittagong basis.

ASSESSMENT PERIOD: Platts will assess cargoes for delivery 30-60 days forward from the date of publication. For example on June 1, the assessment will reflect cargoes for delivery between July 1 and July 31.

VOLUME: The CFR Bangladesh assessment will reflect 55,000 mt cargoes for delivery on a standard Supramax vessel.

The new CFR Bangladesh assessment will appear in Platts Coal Trader International, as well as Platts Coal Alert pages 410 and 425 under the following price database codes: TCBAN00 (daily), TCBAN03 (monthly average) and TCBAN05 (quarterly average).

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