According to the statistics released by China's General Administration of Customs on November 23, China's coal imports for October totaled 11.1 million mt, up 220 percent year on year. On the other hand, from January to October inclusive, China's total coal imports reached 96.83 million mt. Thus, the country's coal imports in 2009 look certain to break the 100 million mt barrier; it is estimated that the import volume for the year will reach 109.08 million mt, marking an increase of around 170 percent year on year. Meanwhile, some analysts have commented that, since the coal prices in the international market are likely to grow faster than prices in the domestic market, China's coal imports will show a reduction next year.
From the fourth quarter of 2008, world energy demand slumped significantly due to the economic recession, with international coal prices falling down from high levels. By the end of March 19 this year, the spot price of Australian BJ steam coal had dropped to $61.5/mt from the peak level of $190.95/mt on July 3, 2008. With the Chinese coal prices consistently higher than the international levels, China's coal imports have soared dramatically in 2009, while the export volume has indicated a rapid decline.
According to the latest figures from the National Bureau of Statistics, China's raw coal production amounted to 2.42 billion mt in the January-October period, up 11.4 percent compared with the same period last year. If no great changes are seen in the last two months of this year, overall domestic coal production will reach 2.9 billion mt for the whole year. Taking the net import volume into consideration, apparent coal consumption in China is expected to approach 3 billion mt in 2009.