India Non-Coking Coal Imports Fall for Second Month in Row; Import from USA Down 40%

India’s thermal coal imports have decreased by 9.29% on a month-to-month basis to 14.47 million tonnes (MnT) in June, as compared to 17.34 MnT in May, marking the second consecutive month of decline in imports, as per the latest vessel lineup data compiled by CoalMint Research.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, however, Indian non-coking coal imports have increased by 15.33% totaling 51.43 MnT during the last three months of this year (Apr-Jun’19), against the cumulative total of 44.59 MnT imported in the corresponding period last year.

Notably, the country’s rising import dependence for securing coal supplies to its thermal power plants has considerably reduced, as the supply shortage has gradually eased out with Coal India ramping up production levels as of late.

Until recently, however, coal shortage at power plants was driving up the country’s thermal coal imports as domestic supply consistently lagged behind demand, despite the government’s repeated assurances of self-sufficiency in production.

India imported 19.62 million tonnes of non-coking coal in April this year, registering an astounding growth of almost 45%, against 13.54 MT in the same month last year.

Source: Vessel Line-up Data, CoalMint Research | Quantity in MnT

Country Wise India Non-Coking Coal Import in Jun’19:

A country wise breakup of the monthly import data reveals that the major proportion of India’s non-coking coal shipments continued to be originated from Indonesia, constituting the highest share of about 52%.

Nevertheless, Indonesian non-coking coal exports to India fell by 26.1% M-o-M to 7.57 MnT in Jun’19 against 10.24 MnT in May’19.

South African non-coking coal supplies to India fell by 8.9% M-o-M to 4.04 MnT in Jun’19 from 4.43 MnT in May’19.

On the contrary, India’s non-coking coal imports from Australia rose by 14.0% M-o-M to 0.88 MnT in Jun’19 compared with 0.77 MnT in May’19.

More importantly, Indian thermal coal imports from USA surged by a whopping 39.5% to 1.01 MnT in Jun’19, against 0.73 MnT in May’19.

Imports from Mozambique dropped by 69.3% M-o-M to MnT 0.16 in Jun’19, against 0.53 MnT in May’19; while imports from Russia remained almost at par.

Source: CoalMint Research | Quantity in MnT

The following table presents a detailed breakup of the countries of origin during the month under review.

Source: CoalMint Research | Quantity in MT