Venezuelan President Maduro shocked the market in early December when he followed China's 'petro-yuan' futures announcement by making headlines of himself proclaiming a new national cryptocurrency - the 'Petro' - to overcome The West's "financial blockade."
With some vessels waiting to load coal and iron ore outside Australian ports for over a month, key charter rates jumped to highest in more than three years.
For all the doom and gloom about the future of coal, the past two years have been a boom time for coal prices that's exceeded by their 2010 to 2012 peak.
More than half the 2017 combined market cap gains for the world's largest listed miners accrued to just five firms as gold producers drop out of top 10.