Reuters : China’s thermal coal imports from Russia jumped 51 percent in May

China’s coal import data for May by origin has been released and shows imports from Indonesia have remained the primary source of imports and Russia the second-largest source of imports. China’s coal imports from Indonesia totaled 12.4 million tons in May, which is down from April by 3.4 million tons (-23%) but up year-on-year by 1.2 million tons (11%).

Despite lower demand and higher domestic production, China has bought significantly higher amounts of Russian coal since May, says Pranay Shukla from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
“This is because Russia has been offering very steep discounts on prevailing international coal prices,” he said.
Indonesia, Russia, and Mongolia are currently the top coal exporters to China.

China’s thermal coal imports from Russia jumped 51 percent in May, compared to the previous month, Reuters reported.

This happens as buyers snapped up the attractively priced fuel ahead of anticipated strong demand in summer.

Russia’s coal shipments to China have been rising even though overall shipments to China have declined, new data from S&P Global Market Intelligence showed.

Russian seaborne coal deliveries to China surged 55% to 6.2 million tonnes in the first 28 days of June compared to the same period last year, S&P’s Commodities at Sea database showed. In May, Russian seaborne supply to China also rose by 20% year-on-year to 5.5 million tonnes.

Otherwise, china’s thermal electricity production, virtually all of which is coal-fuelled has grown by 769TWh between 2015 and 2018, or 18 percent. That’s about four-time Australia’s electricity consumption and probably over 500 million tonnes of extra CO2 per year.