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China’s Coal Production Hit a New Record High in 2023

January 18, 2024

China’s Coal Production Hit a New Record High in 2023

Higher power demand and efforts to boost energy security pushed China’s coal production to a record-high level in 2023, according to official statistics data published on Wednesday.

Chinese coal output rose by 2.9% year-over-year to 4.66 billion metric tons in 2023, per data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported by Reuters.

Coal imports also rose last year, as some domestic mining operations were suspended for some time in 2023 due to safety inspections and concerns.

Higher demand after the COVID restrictions were lifted and higher domestic coal prices led to record-high coal imports into China, which soared by 61.8% year-on-year to 474.42 million metric tons in 2023, data from the General Administration of Customs showed last week.

In the latter part of 2023, China ramped up coal and natural gas production, imports, and consumption as its electricity demand jumped in the second half and looks to hit a record-high winter peak demand.

Chinese authorities have been keen to avoid a repeat of the 2022 shortages and spiking prices and have instructed utilities and producers to maximize imports and output before the winter.

China continues to rely on coal and coal-fired power generation to meet its growing power demand, and despite being the world’s top investor in solar and wind capacity, it also plans a lot of new coal-fired electricity capacity.

During the first half of 2023 alone, China approved more than 50 GW of new coal power, Greenpeace said in a report this year. That’s more than it did in all of 2021, the environmental campaign group said.

China’s coal demand is expected to drop this year and plateau through 2026, and global demand is set to decline to 2026, “but China will have the last word,” the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its Coal 2023 annual report.

The outlook for coal in China will be significantly affected in the coming years by the pace of its clean energy deployment, weather conditions, and structural shifts in the Chinese economy, according to the agency.

World Coal 2018-2050: World Energy Annual Report (Part 4)

September 20, 2018

World Coal 2018-2050: World Energy Annual Report (Part 4)

This is Part 4 of the World Energy Annual Report in 2018. This part of the Annual Report provides updated analysis of world coal production and consumption, evaluates the future prospect of world coal supply and considers the implications of peak coal production for global economic growth.

This report uses Hubbert linearization to evaluate a region’s ultimately recoverable coal resources where a Hubbert linear trend can be meaningfully established, that is, where a clear downward trend of the annual production to cumulative production ratios can be identified and has been established for at least several years. Otherwise, this report uses alternative sources to establish a region’s ultimately recoverable coal resources, such as official reserves, official projections, or estimates made by energy research institutions.

chart/

Figure 14 World Historical and Projected Coal Production, 1950-2050

Figures are placed at the end of each section.

Coal Consumption by Major Economies, 1990-2017

According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, world coal consumption was 3,732 million tons of oil equivalent in 2017. Between 2007 and 2017, world coal consumption grew at an average annual rate of 0.8 percent.

Figure 1 compares the historical world economic growth rates and the coal consumption growth rates from 1991 to 2017. The coal consumption growth rate has an intercept of -0.031 at zero economic growth rate and a slope of 1.496. That is, coal consumption has an “autonomous” tendency to fall by 3.1 percent a year when economic growth rate is zero. However, an increase (or decrease) in economic growth rate by one percentage point is associated with an increase (or decrease) in coal consumption by about 1.5 percent. R-square for the linear trend is 0.45. In 2017, world coal consumption grew by 0.7 percent, a rate that is 1.9 percentage points below what is implied by the historical trend.

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China: Is peak coal part of its problem?

June 21, 2016

China: Is peak coal part of its problem?

The world’s coal resources are clearly huge. How could China, or the world in total, reach peak coal in a timeframe that makes a difference?

If we look at China’s coal production and consumption in BP’s 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy (SRWE), this is what we see:

Figure 1. China's production and consumption of coal based on BP 2016 SRWE.

Figure 1. China’s production and consumption of coal based on BP 2016 SRWE.

Figure 2 shows that the quantities of other fuels are increasing in a pattern similar to past patterns. None of them is large enough to make a real difference in offsetting the loss of coal consumption. Renewables (really “other renewables”) include wind, solar, geothermal, and wood burned to produce electricity. This category is still tiny in comparison to coal.

Figure 2. China's energy consumption by fuel, based on BP 2016 SRWE.

Figure 2. China’s energy consumption by fuel, based on BP 2016 SRWE.

Why would a country selectively decide to slow down the growth of the fuel that has made its current “boom” possible? Coal is generally cheaper than other fuels. The fact that China has a lot of low-cost coal, and can use it together with its cheap labor, has allowed China to manufacture goods very inexpensively, and thus be very competitive in world markets.

In my view, China really had no choice regarding the cutback in coal production–market forces were pushing for less production of goods, and this was playing out as lower commodity prices of many types, including coal, oil, and natural gas, plus many types of metals.

China is mostly self-sufficient in coal production, but it is a major importer of natural gas and oil. Lower oil and natural gas prices made imported fuels of these types more affordable, and thus encouraged more importing of these products.

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On Burning Ground: The Human Cost Of India’s Push to Produce More Coal

March 15, 2016

On Burning Ground: The Human Cost Of India’s Push to Produce More Coal 

Girls scavenge coal at a dump site of an open-cast mine in the Jharia coalfield. View gallery.   Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

As part of India’s modernization program, Prime Minister Narenda Modi has called for doubling the nation’s coal production by 2020. For the villages in the Jharia coalfield, which is frequently shrouded in smoke from underground fires, the government’s plans have only increased the pressures and dangers of living alongside huge, burning open-pit mines.

“Come,” says Raju. “Let me show you my house.” His clean white shirt, well-brushed hair, and calm demeanor belie the almost apocalyptic landscape in which he and his family lived.

We are standing on the edge of a 650-foot unfenced drop into an open-pit coal mine that is shrouded in dust. As we gingerly approach his home, a two-room brick hut just 30 feet from the precipice, we have to clamber over the rubble of collapsed houses and avoid deep fissures and spots of hot earth from which smoke is erupting. What remains of the once-rural village of Lantenganj — now deep inside India’s largest coalfield in the mining state of Jharkhand — is being consumed by underground fires that burn the coal beneath. The government-owned company Bharat Coking Coal, whose mines are responsible for the fires, wants the villagers to leave — for their own safety, the company says, and so the mine can be expanded.

But Raju’s family and the 50 others that cling on here say they will not go without proper compensation and new homes near to their jobs in these mines. “We’ve got nothing from the government,” Raju tells me, as we inspect a crack that has opened up in his living room floor. “We want a better deal or we will not move.” Until, presumably, their houses fall into the abyss below.

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A “Wave of Bankruptcies” About To Hit Coal Industry

March 20, 2015

A “Wave of Bankruptcies” About To Hit Coal Industry

The future for the coal industry is looking “increasingly bleak,” according to an investor’s note from Macquarie Research. The analysis firm also said that “a wave of bankruptcies” appear to be just over the horizon as coal mining companies deal with mounting debt and a shrinking market.

The coal markets have collapsed in spectacular fashion over the last few years due to a perfect storm of factors. U.S. coal producers first had to compete ferociously with shale gas in America’s electric power sector as fracking took off about a decade ago. That forced an array of coal plants to shut down as cheap gas washed over the country. Subsequently a regulatory crack down from the federal government – including forthcoming restrictions on greenhouse gases – further dimmed the growth prospects of coal.

But U.S. coal producers always had the international market, and exports stepped up in concert with falling domestic consumption. Now the foreign buyers are shrinking as well. China, the one country that the coal industry could count on for ceaseless growth in coal consumption, actually burned 2.9 percent less coal in 2014 than it did the year before.

Related: Is China Exporting Its Pollution?

When China, which consumes about as much coal as the rest of the world combined, sees its level of coal burning stay flat or even fall, that raises red flags for the entire industry.

 

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Falling Coal Prices Wreaking Havoc With Corporate Balance Sheets

October 24, 2014

Falling Coal Prices Wreaking Havoc With Corporate Balance Sheets.

The slide in oil prices has raised speculation that oil companies in the U.S. could be forced to cut back on production, but a market slump in another commodity is also putting pressure on producers.

Coal markets are currently experiencing a supply glut that is showing no signs of recovery. Mining companies drew up plans for billion-dollar projects in the mid-2000s, when commodity prices were on the upswing. With many of those projects now coming online, coal production is rising.

BHP Billiton, an Australian mining giant, just opened a $3.4 billion mine in Queensland, which will add 5.5 million tonnes of coal capacity per year to the global market. The mine allowed BHP Billiton to push its production to record levels. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott was on hand for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, where he proclaimed “coal is good for humanity.”

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