China’s coal imports have continued to exhibit a downward trend due to persisting weak demand on account of domestic oversupply and the devaluated Yuan.
Chinese coal imports, including lignite, were reported to decline by 31.3% during the first eight months of the current year, when compared to the138.6 MnT coal imported during the corresponding period of last year.
Imports into the world’s largest coal buyer were shrunk 17.49MnT in Aug’15, shrunk by 17.7%from the preceding month.
To tackle the domestic oversupply situation, China has been reported to ask the big local producers to cut down production. Ironically, new quality standards were also drawn up aimed at restricting low grade coal imports.
During July’15, imports showed a modest recovery as almost half of domestic miners either suspended operations completely or cut production to minimize losses.
As a result of the present situation, coal prices in the country have been drifting downward. The situation further worsened in early September, when, thermal coal was selling at the port of Qinhuangdao SH-QHA-TRMCOAL at USD 63.5/MT, which was down 22.9% since the beginning of the year.
On the other side, the currency devaluation seems to have triggered increase in exports, which reached 530,000 MT in Aug’15, up by 29.3% than in July’15. However, the total export during the first eight months of the current year was recorded 16.3% lower, at 3.29 MnT, than in the same period of last year.
The surge in exports is likely to improve supply and moderate prices in the importing countries, like India.
Imports were also down by 41.5% to 49.07 MnT in the first three months of the current year than in the same period of the previous year. The nation imported had 291 MnT of coal in 2014, down by 10.9% in 2013.
– Sourced
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