The quarterly benchmark price for metallurgical coal dropped to a six-year low, according to Doyle Trading Consultants LLC, amid a global oversupply of the steelmaking ingredient and a slowdown in Chinese demand.

The fourth-quarter price was set at $119 a metric ton, down a dollar from the third quarter, Grand Junction, Colorado-based Doyle Trading said in a report today.

Shares of U.S. coal producers dropped in New York. Arch Coal Inc. (ACI) fell as much as 9.5 percent, Walter Energy Inc. (WLT) declined 7.1 percent, Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU) was 4.3 percent lower, and Alpha Natural Resources slid 5.9 percent in New York.

There have been as much as 30 million tons of production cuts in metallurgical coal so far this year, or almost 10 percent of global seaborne supply, St. Louis-based Peabody said Sept 18.

“We expect further met production curtailments to continue into 2015,” Daniel W. Scott, an analyst at Cowen & Co. in New York, said in a note today.

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