As of March 13, 2023, a total of 1.35 million tons of coal had been shipped from Australia to China, which marks a significant increase from 0.82 million tons the previous month.
China Buys More Australia Coal at Highest Level Since Ban - Bloomberg.
-- as well as steel producer China Baowu Steel Group Corp. have received intimations from the government to import Australian coal. Data from S&P Global Commodities at Sea shows around 1.4 million mt of coal was loaded from Australia for China in about 14 shipments.
China's coking coal imports from Australia are expected to reach 8 million-10 million mt in 2023, analysts said, around 28 million-30 million mt less than in 2020 before the trade was halted.
Japan, India and European countries gained at China's expense, boosting imports from Australia. China increased shipments from Indonesia in 2021 and Russia in 2022, data from consultancy Kpler showed. Australia supplied 36.5% of Japan's coal imports in 2022, up from 27.6% in 2019.
China is the second largest importer of coking coal at 63.8 mt, up 17 per cent YoY, as against 54.7 mt in 2021.
China is in no rush to buy thermal coal from Australia even after lifting the import ban, as the former still has enough options globally to meet its requirements, particularly for medium calorific value fuel, a senior analyst from the International Energy Agency told S&P Global Commodity Insights.
This marked an end of a ban on Australian coal imports that lasted for more than two years. Some analysts contended that this decision was driven by China's domestic energy supply pressure. Some suggested that it was promoted by Australia to offset the impact of declining iron ore prices on its export revenue.
China is Australia's largest two-way trading partner in goods and services, accounting for nearly one third (32.2 per cent) of our trade with the world.
China sharply increased coal imports from Russia after its invasion of Ukraine as Western countries shunned trade with Moscow, which pushed down Russian coal prices and attracted buyers that did not implement sanctions.
In 2022, China bought 1.1 billion tonnes of iron ore, 65% of which were from Australia. For Beijing, commodities from Australia are important for its efforts to revive the pandemic-hit economy. Iron ore, for example, is a vital component of its steel industry.
Beijing imposed an unofficial ban on coal trade with Canberra in 2020.
China was the largest importer of coal in 2019 at 308 Mt, followed by India at 249 Mt. It is estimated that for 2020 trade volumes will recede around 10%, or around 150 Mt, the largest drop ever, most of which are seaborne coal trade.
The coal industry employed around 46,000 people in 2022, and is projected to employ around 67,500 people by 2025.
“If Australia today said we are not going to export any more coal, what you'd see is a lot of jobs lost, you would see a significant loss to our economy, significantly less taxation, revenue for education, health and other services, and that coal wouldn't lead to a reduction in global emissions, what you would see is a ...
Coalfields. China produces most of the thermal coal (both black and brown coal) it burns, but imports coking coal to make high quality steel. Inner Mongolia, Shanxi and Shaanxi are the main coal-producing provinces, and most coal is found in the north and northwest of the country.
Since 1985, the government has directed expenditures toward expanding the energy supply, which reduced efficiency expenditures from 10% to 6% of total investment. Alternatives are natural gas or solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal energy. Alternatives are natural gas or solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal energy.
The worth of financial assets would fall by one fifth on average, and by one quarter in Australia. An end to trade across a bamboo curtain would hit Australia, since we export more resources to China than anywhere else and we import more goods from China than anywhere else.
Iron ore is the most important export earner for Australia. Between 2000 and 2020, Australia exported more than $620 billion worth of iron ore to China. In April 2021, the spot price reached the record high of $238 per ton.
Australia is the fifth largest producer, the second largest exporter and has the third largest reserves of coal in the world.
Australia, with around 70% of its coal production being exported, is the world's largest exporter of coal.
Australia's top three coal producers, Glencore, BHP and Yancoal, recorded hefty profits last year from coking and thermal coal. These three companies control well over half of Australian black coal production and all have said they are enjoying great cash margins (reflecting profit after operating costs) of about 45%.