Australian coking coal exports rose for the third consecutive month to a record monthly volume of 15.1 million tonnes in June. Exports of steam coal on the other hand have now reached to a year to date high of 12.0 million tonnes in the same month. According to the Australia Bureau of Statistics, as a result, total coal exports hit an all time high of 27 million tonnes in June.

JSW Steel Ltd is looking to acquire coking coal blocks in Australia in a joint venture with other steel majors in the country. The company's Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Sajjan Jindal, said on Wednesday that JSW was in talks with various steel companies such as SAIL, RINL and Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) to form a joint venture and acquire large coking coal blocks in Australia.

Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group, partly owned by BHP Billiton Ltd., completed financing for a A$900 million ($824 million) expansion of a terminal at the port in Australia’s New South Wales state. Export capacity will rise to 53 million metric tons a year from 30 million tons now, the group, known as NCIG, said in an e-mailed statement today. Construction will take place over the next two years. The terminal has planning approval to handle 66 million tons of coal annually.

The chairman of the Diggers and Dealers mining forum has labelled the Federal Government's proposed mining tax "economic terrorism". Barry Eldridge has opened the usually apolitical conference in the West Australian city of Kalgoorlie with a scathing attack on the Government's plan.

The Gillard government's planned minerals tax compromise is expected to deliver an extra $7.4 billion from the nation's coal sector. The profit is estimated to come in its first five years, according to new research from analysts Wood Mackenzie. The planned minerals resource rent tax will also wipe about $12bn in net present value from the industry, according to the report.

An Indian company is planning massive investments in Australia's coal industry. The move mirrors the vertical integration pioneered by Japanese interests in the 1980s. Adani Group's actions in the past fortnight suggest it wants a reliable supply of coal from Australia and to shift it as cheaply as possible to power industrial development in India. The company has been short-listed by the Queensland government as possible builders and operators of a new coal port in central Queensland at Point Dudgeon, just north of the existing port of Dalrymple Bay.

The revised mining tax will cause a long-term fall in investment in new iron ore and coal projects, but will not derail business spending. Access Economics says that although the new tax is much improved from the original resource super-profits tax, it will still make investment in Australia less competitive than in Canada, Indonesia or Brazil. The economic consultancy's latest review of the economy says investment in resources and construction will lead to growth over the next year, boosting Western Australia and Queensland.

The significance of the Coalition promising to axe the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute becomes clearer when viewed with a wider lens - one that takes in its decision after the May budget to cut money from a host of other climate-change programs. Among them was the carbon capture and storage flagships program - a fund dedicated to developing ''clean coal'' demonstration plants. It was stripped of $200 million.