Australia Floods to buoy coking coal prices by a third

Australia's Bowen Basin coal district, the heart of its coking coal industry in Queensland state, is slowly emerging from floods, which have now raced south, but recovery has been slow, with one Queensland coal port closed and two restricted.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia said the floods could remove nearly 14-million tons of coking coal from world markets, and that figure could rise if rains returned to the Bowen Basin. "Open-cut mines are flooded, mine roads and railways are underwater and/or washed out," the bank said in a report.