Asia-Pacific countries to suffer from tight coal supply
Friday, 21 September 2007
BEIJING, Sept 20 (CEIS): Coal supply in the Asia- Pacific region is predicted to shrink in the following years as most Asian coal exporters would scale down coal export to power their own economy.
Hunger for thermal coal and discouraged by the state policy to cancel coal export rebate, former coal exporter China has turned to be a net coal importer early this year. The Asian giant has witnessed an annual 10 million tons incremental coal import for three years in a row.
Indonesia, Asian top steam coal exporter, also claims that it would follow suit of China to cancel export rebate sometime in the future to make its coal exports to go down from 193 million tons in 2006 to 170 million tons in 2007 and further lower to annual export of 150 million tons from 2009 to 2025.
Since its electricity generation and cement industry take up 60 per cent of coal consumption, Vietnam is predicted to turn to a net importer rather than its present role of net exporter from 2015, with import estimated at 3.4 million tons in 2015, 197 million tons in 2020 and 874 million tons in 2025.
Australia is presently responsible for exporting two-third of coking coal to Asian countries, but a lack of rail and ship loading capacity and complicated capacity sharing systems at Australia's key export ports at Newcastle and Dalrymple Bay has limited exports, with dozens of ships regularly queuing off the coast waiting to be loaded.
Hunger for thermal coal and discouraged by the state policy to cancel coal export rebate, former coal exporter China has turned to be a net coal importer early this year. The Asian giant has witnessed an annual 10 million tons incremental coal import for three years in a row.
Indonesia, Asian top steam coal exporter, also claims that it would follow suit of China to cancel export rebate sometime in the future to make its coal exports to go down from 193 million tons in 2006 to 170 million tons in 2007 and further lower to annual export of 150 million tons from 2009 to 2025.
Since its electricity generation and cement industry take up 60 per cent of coal consumption, Vietnam is predicted to turn to a net importer rather than its present role of net exporter from 2015, with import estimated at 3.4 million tons in 2015, 197 million tons in 2020 and 874 million tons in 2025.
Australia is presently responsible for exporting two-third of coking coal to Asian countries, but a lack of rail and ship loading capacity and complicated capacity sharing systems at Australia's key export ports at Newcastle and Dalrymple Bay has limited exports, with dozens of ships regularly queuing off the coast waiting to be loaded.