Indian industry players estimate that the country’s coal import demand from Indonesia may be 20 percent lower this year.
India – Indonesia’s second largest coal export market after China – has been heavily impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which in turn has drastically decreased the country’s energy consumption.
Prashant Goyal, CEO of OPG Power Generation Pvt. Ltd., recently stated that Indonesia is the top coal supplier of thermal coal for blending purpose to fuel coal-fired power plants in coastal areas of India.
“This year, Indonesian (coal) imports into India may be reduced by more or less 20 percent”, Goyal said. The total coal imports from Indonesia in the January to May period of 2020 was 38.61 million tons (mn t), as against 47.25 mn t in the corresponding period of the previous year.
In 2019, India imported 103.64 mn t of thermal coal and 1.89 mn t of coking coal from Indonesia. South Africa was the second largest coal source for India with import volume of 39.99 mn t of thermal coal in 2019.
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