Due to the shift of Chinese coal production towards the western regions of the country, coal transportation in China has been facing increased difficulties and costs, with the result that domestic coal prices have become higher than imported coal prices in China, leading in turn to the sharp rise in coal imports into the country in the first three quarters of this year.
According to the statistics released by China's General Administration of Customs on October 26, China's coal imports in the January-September period totaled 85.7million mt, a rise of 167 percent year on year, with September coal imports amounting to 12.5 million mt.
Over the past week coal prices at Qinhuangdao Port have continued to rise, reached a peak level in the period since November 2008. At present, the prices of coal with heating value of 5,800 kCal/kg have risen by two percent week on week to RMB 655-680/mt. However, by the end of trading on October 23, main coal prices at Australia's Newcastle Port were at $72.53/mt. Experts commented that the price gap between domestic prices and import prices is the main reason for the sharp surge in coal imports.
Meanwhile, Shanxi Province has accelerated the restructuring of its coal industry this year, leading to a great fall in coal production in the province. On the other hand, newly-added coal production in recent years has mainly come from the northwestern regions. In the first eight months of this year, the coal production of the northwestern regions (Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Xinjiang) accounted for 36.8 percent of the total national production, up by 5.3 percentage points compared with the same period last year.