Protesters disrupt loading at Australian coal port

SYDNEY, July 14 (Reuters) - Environmental protesters in Australia disrupted operations at the world's biggest coal terminal for a second day on Monday after four activists chained themselves to a conveyor belt.

Coal loading was brought to a standstill for more than two hours on Monday due to the protest, said a spokesman for Port Waratah Coal Services at Newcastle.

"The conveyor belt was not operating at the time, but we stopped the other two ship loaders for safety reasons," Graham Davidson told Reuters. "We were down for two hours until police removed the protesters."

Davidson said the port had not estimated how much coal was affected by the stoppage.

The protest is part of a planned six-day action by environmental groups aimed at shutting down coal export operations at Australia's Newcastle port, 100 km (60 miles) north of Sydney, to protest against the impact of burning coal on climate change.

Police arrested about 37 people on Sunday after they chained themselves to train and rail tracks at the port, preventing about 20,000 tonnes of coal from being loaded. Loading of coal already in the terminal on to waiting freighters was not affected.

Big coal exporters such as BHP Billiton Ltd (BHP.AX) (BLT.L), Xstrata Plc (XTA.L), Rio Tinto Ltd/Plc (RIO.AX) (RIO.L), Gloucester Coal Ltd (GCL.AX) and Centennial Coal Company Ltd (CEY.AX) ship millions of tonnes of coal each year from the port.

With consistent demand, much of it from China, 38.7 million tonnes of coal were shipped out of Newcastle in the first five months of 2008, according to port figures.

Coal exports from Newcastle port surged to 2.059 million tonnes last week, with 38 ships waiting to load.

Australia, highly dependent on coal for making electricity and generating hundreds of billions of dollars in annual export revenue, is scheduled to release a paper on Wednesday spelling out guidelines for how it intends to implement carbon emissions trading, in part to address pollution caused by coal. (Reporting by Michael Perry; Editing by Mark Bendeich)