Deutsche Bank predicts that thermal coal could become Australia''s next booming commodity. The German investment bank''s global thermal coal team expects thermal coal contract prices to rise 26% to USD 120 a tonne by 2012 because of a rise in net imports from China and India The forecast led to local analysts upgrading their earnings guidance yesterday for a swag of coal miners, including BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, despite the threat posed by the controversial resource super profits tax.
Deutsche Bank''s report said that "The seaborne thermal coal market is experiencing a transformation which may be as significant as that which occurred for the iron ore market over the past decade. In a similar way, we believe China and India together could transform the demand landscape for thermal coal over the next decade, displacing current western importers and evolving to dominate the industry."
The Reserve Bank of Australia reiterated this week that despite the recent softening of commodity prices in the wake of Europe''s debt crisis and a slowdown in China, Australia''s terms of trade were likely to remain at high levels.
Deutsche Bank''s report shows this year''s thermal coal contract prices were higher than expected at about USD 98 a tonne and the bank expected the

Deutsche said that very supportive fundamentals to continue into next year and 2012. Thermal coal suppliers have not moved to quarterly pricing as iron ore producers have, which provided a more stable earnings outlook.
NSW miners Whitehaven Coal and Centennial Coal are Deutsche''s preferred thermal coal stocks, and yesterday analyst Brendan Fitzpatrick upgraded Whitehaven to a buy and lifted Centennial''s earnings per share by up to 65% in full year 2012.
Analyst Mr Paul Young also upgraded earnings of BHP and Rio by up to 5.5% in 2012-13 because of the size of their thermal coal businesses relative to their other divisions. He added that "We believe the competition for capital with other divisions means BHP''s energy coal growth pipeline is more limited than Xstrata and Anglo."

Deutsche reiterated its buy rating on Rio and BHP and upgraded its price targets to USD 96.50 and USD 48, respectively.