Coal exports from Australia's Newcastle, the world's biggest export harbor for the fuel, rose 15 percent last week while the number of ships waiting outside the port fell.

The volume shipped in the week ended 7 a.m. local time yesterday rose to 1.96 million metric tons from 1.7 million tons a week earlier, Newcastle Port Corp. said today on its Web site. A total of 36 ships, waiting to load 2.96 million metric tons of coal, were lined up outside the port, down from 41 last week.

Bottlenecks at Newcastle, together with flooding in Queensland state to the north, helped drive prices for power- station coal from the Australian port to a record this month. Protesters halted ship loading for more than 2 hours yesterday and temporarily blocked rail deliveries a day earlier.

Coal ships waited 11.12 days to load coal in the week ended July 14, down from 12.93 days a week earlier, Newcastle Port said. The waiting time compared with 0.08 day for general cargo vessels last week, it said.

A total of 35 vessels carrying coal left Newcastle in the week ended July 12, 7 more than a week earlier, Newcastle Port said yesterday in an e-mailed report. Seventeen ships were bound for Japan, two for South Korea, three for Taiwan and one each for Malaysia and Thailand, it said.

The price of coal from Newcastle, a benchmark for Asia, yesterday fell for the first time in 12 weeks, dropping 3.5 percent to $188 a metric ton in the week ended July 11, according to the globalCOAL NEWC Index.

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