Following Impressive export revenues from South Africa's Richards Bay Coal Terminal, experts are expecting coal to become nation's biggest export.

Second largest coal exporting port in the world, South African coal terminal Richards Bay shipped this year's highest monthly coal volume in September, as per a company official.

Richards Bay loaded around 7.17 m tons in September 2006, a 25% increase over coal loaded in September last year, as per Bloomberg reports. The coal terminal had shipped around 4.39 m tons in the month of August. A record 69.2 m tons was shipped in 2005 by Richards Bay, and as per Bloomberg calculations, the figure will be around 62.9 m tons of coal exports for this year.

The rising figures have led analysts to predict coal as a bigger export in South Africa than gold in future as Richards Bay's expansion completes in 2009. So-called South African 'Black Gold' could well provide R27 Billion in earnings by 2009 considering the 2005 prices, an increase of R6 Billion on existing earnings.

Noted economist of South African Chamber of Mines, Roger Baxter expects exports to grow considerably as Richards Bay terminal expands its capacity from 72 m tons to 92 m tons.

Xavier Prevost from Dept. of Minerals & Energy Affairs expects prices to continue to go upward and rise by 3% every year.

Gold exports presently accounts to around R27 Billion of annual export revenue in South Africa but rate of production will probably slow down, as reserves get smaller, he said.

"Lack of enough investments in coal industry, mainly due to infrastructure limitations & complex regulatory issues, would be major a obstacle in the growth of South African Coal industry despite the fact that the prices have risen in the past one and a half year", said an analyst at RNCOS.

Coal is being seen as an important energy source as global energy demand continues to rise, which could lead to demand of coal remaining sustained worldwide.

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