Australia’s Newcastle port is assessing whether to lift restrictions on ship movements as the world’s biggest coal-export harbor faces a second night of high seas and strong winds.

Ships off the coast are experiencing winds of 30 kilometers an hour (18 miles an hour) and seas of up to 6 meters, according to a government statement issued today. Strong winds are forecast to continue overnight with gusts expected to reach up to 75 kilometers an hour off the coast. A coal ship was able to leave the port this morning, said Keith Powell, a spokesman at Newcastle Port Corp., in a phone interview today.

The 225-meter (738-foot) long Pasha Bulker ran aground at a beach near Newcastle harbor, in June last year with 700 metric tons of fuel oil, 38 tons of diesel and 40 tons of lube oil aboard. Since that incident, which beached the vessel for almost a month, the port has implemented new safety measures, including advising ships to anchor at least three nautical miles offshore.

No ships have entered the port today, with eight anchored outside the port and a further 22 further out to sea as of 5:45 p.m. local time, Powell said. The port handles an average of 1,500 vessels a year, he said.

A severe weather warning for parts of coastal New South Wales state, including the Newcastle area, was canceled at 8:15 a.m. Sydney time by the Bureau of Meteorology. The port yesterday stopped ships entering and halted almost all departures because of high seas and gale-force winds.

The price of coal has surged to a record this year as bottlenecks at ports constrained shipments and supplies in China and India dwindle.

The weekly price index for power-station coal shipped from Newcastle surged $13.35, or 9.6 percent, to $151.70 a metric ton in the week ended May 30, according to the globalCOAL NEWC Index. The running week-to-date index was at $157.29 a ton yesterday, up $3.60 from the previous day, globalCOAL said in an e-mail.

The price has almost tripled from $56.35 a ton a year ago.

Rio Tinto Group, Xstrata Plc and BHP Billiton Ltd. are among mining companies that ship coal through Newcastle.

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