Mexico may be back buying coal in January - trade

HOUSTON, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Mexico's electric utility may issue a tender for coal in January to try to get coal flowing to its power plants by April, a trader said Monday.

"The tender may well come out in the first week of January so they have a chance of getting coal coming in by April," a supplier to the Federal Electric Commission told Reuters.

Mexico has had difficulty with recent tenders, getting no takers on an early November request for proposals, and has been buying on the spot market.

Not normally a buyer of Colombian coal, because of the cost of shipping it through the Panama Canal, Mexico has been paying high prices for Colombian recently, market sources have said.

CFE buys about 4.5 million tonnes a year for its Petacalco power plant on the Pacific Coast of Mexico southwest of Mexico City, which runs solely on imported coal, experts say. (Reporting by Jacqueline Cowhig, writing by Bruce Nichols; Editing by David Gregorio)