Chinese Coking Coal Imports

Coal

China imported 9.8 Mt of coking coal in March, up 4.2 Mt year-on-year with a sharp rise in seaborne imports from Canada and the US amid a continued lack of Australian supply, data from IHS showed.

However, the largest increase in imports came overland from Mongolia with 4.3 Mt of volume registered from the country compared with just 50,000 t in the same month last year.

Canadian volumes totalled 2.4 Mt versus 0.6 Mt a year earlier, with US supply hitting 1.3 Mt compared with 0.1 Mt a year ago. Russian supply rose to 1.2 Mt in March compared with 0.4 Mt in the same month last year.  

In the 1q, total imports hit 22.5 Mt with 12.2 Mt coming overland from Mongolia. This compares with 20.7 Mt in the January-March period of 2020 when 14.7 Mt of coking coal came via seaborne trade from Australia.