[ferro-alloys.com]Australia's Hunter Valley coal rail network is due for a 72-hour shutdown next week for planned maintenance work, the Australian Rail Track Corporation said Thursday.

The shutdown follows the network experiencing on unplanned outage on the Ulan last week following a train derailment. That outage ran from Wednesday last week to Tuesday this week, ARTC said.

"Maintenance and enhancement work will be occurring on the coal network at Kooragang and up along the main line, splitting at Muswellbrook out to Ulan and Narrabri," ARTC's group executive for the Hunter Valley Jonathan Vandervoort said.

"During the three days of the shutdown we will be undertaking essential work that can be done in a safer environment with fewer or no trains operating on the network. This includes ballast cleaning, re-railing, track re-conditioning and bridge renewal works," he said.

The 72-hour shutdown is to be between 6:30am AEDT Tuesday (1930 GMT Monday) and 6:30am on Friday, the ARTC said.

The Hunter Valley rail network links mines in the region to the Port of Newcastle for export via the Port Waratah Coal Services terminal and the Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group facility.

Coal stocks at PWCS stood at 1.84 million mt as of midnight Wednesday with a vessel queue of eight ships, the Hunter Valley Coal Chain Coordinator said. PWCS' nomination for February were 9.1 million mt as of Monday and there is expected to be 11 vessels queuing at the end of the month, HVCCC said Monday.

For the week ended February 10, there was 3.11 million mt of coal delivered by rail to PWCS and NCIG, HVCCC said.

(S&P Global Platts)

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